MORNING'S 
WAR 

C.E.MONTAGUE 


THE    MORNING'S   WAR 


THE 
MORNING'S    WAR 


A  ROMANCE 


BY 

C.    E.    MONTAGUE 


This  battle  fares  like  to  the  morning's  war, 
When  dying  clouds  contend  with  growing  light." 

Third  Part  of  King  Henry  VI.,  Act  ii.  sc.  5. 


NEW   YORK 

HENRY    HOLT   AND    COMPANY 

1913 


Ci[ 


Copyright,  1913. 

BY 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 


Published  August,  1913 


1   < 


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■ 


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TO 

M.    M. 


Ml 


PROLOGUE 


■     ■ 


"  Escape.  A  garden  plant  growing  wild  in'thti  ntids.  A  species 
thus  continued,  in  a  soil  and  climate  strange  to  it,  may  in  time 
exhibit  remarkable  changes  in  its  characteristics." 

Handbook  of  Botany. 

IT  may  have  looked  less  like  a  sowing  of  seed  than 
a  casting  of  some  weed  into  the  fire  when  Frank 
Browne,  a  sadly  wild  fellow,  drained  his  last  can  in  the 
London  of  1610,  fell  asleep  full  of  beautiful  thoughts 
on  a  bench  close  to  Ludgate  and  found,  when  next 
things  came  clear,  that  he  was  ascending  a  hill,  wet 
with  a  fog  that  beaded  his  hair,  in  a  light  that  could 
only  be  dawn,  and  he  with  a  musket  in  hand,  wonder- 
ing what  could  have  sent  him  soldiering.  Had  he  been 
nabbed  while  he  slept?  Or  was  he  there  of  his  own 
motion,  a  Maccabee  saving  his  country,  urged  by  some 
vision  that  had  visited  his  bench?  It  must  have  been 
this  second  way ;  he  preferred  it ;  and  there  were  such 
calls;  Joan  of  Arc  might  have  had  one,  for  all  that 
they  said ;  a  lowly  vessel,  no  doubt,  but  the  hundred  or 
so  that  marched  with  him  now  looked  lowly  too ;  if  such 
stones  were  to  head  any  corners  at  all  it  must  be 
Heaven's,  so  clearly  had  this  world's  builders  rejected 
them  all.  The  nude  has  its  glories,  and  clothes  that 
cohere  have  theirs:  here  you  saw  neither,  but  a  chill 
turpitude:  mangy  cats  looked  so;  for  the  very  fleas, 
in  their  shrinking  coverts,  the  future  must  have  a  dis- 
quieting air.     It  was  surely  a  call  that  had  come. 


2  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

What  a  thing,  he  mused,  dozing  again  as  he  tramped 
up  to  Higl-gate,  it  is  for  a  man  to  know  what  is  what! 
Here  was  he,  Fortune's  confidant,  feeling  with  her  in 
her  strange  and  right  choice  of  tools,  in  her  eye  for 
effect,  her  humor;  a  fool,  in  his  place,  might  now 
have  been  cracking  a  fool's  jests — "  Did  powder  not 
want  its  food  dressed?  "  and  that  sort  of  stuff,  whereas 
he — this  it  was  to  have  breathed,  though  it  were  but 
unstudiously,  Oxford's  quick  air;  it  gave  your  mind 
eyes.  A  sense  of  this  great  blessing  glowed  in  Frank 
like  some  fire-lit  corner,  a  warm  nook  to  bask  in  and 
dream.  Dream  he  did,  till  the  hardest  kick  that  his 
young  life  had  sustained  awoke  him  to  see  a  sergeant 
bulging  and  bluish-red  with  wrath  at  a  dreamer's  mus- 
ket dropped  in  the  mud. 

A  kick  may  work  fast  on  the  generous  mind :  in  an 
instant  Frank  had  kicked  back.  But  the  mind  can 
work  faster  yet  on  a  kick :  in  less  than  that  instant 
Frank's  mind  running  out,  still  in  dream,  to  the  doors 
of  the  body  to  see  who  had  knocked  there  so  unkindly, 
had  caught  at  that  unexplained  shock  and  spun  it 
ligaments  of  meaning  and  cause,  till,  like  a  play's  cli- 
max, the  crash  was  led  up  to;  Frank  saw  it  as  just 
the  last  term  in  the  series  of  wise  good  turns  that  his 
race  had  done  him  since  he  was  a  boy,  the  Benjamin  of 
a  big  house.  He  saw  how  his  father  had  tried  to  teach 
him  to  carry  his  wine,  as  was  kind,  and  had  cut  him 
adrift  for  carrying  more,  as  was  fair  enough;  and  had 
put  him  to  no  trade — what  trade  could  he  sweat  at, 
with  his  blood  ? — but  gave  him,  instead,  as  much  money 
as  he  could  half  live  upon — for  the  heir  of  the  house 


PROLOGUE  3 

must  live  too:  Frank  quite  saw  the  justice  of  that — 
and  how  the  orifice  of  the  family  door  in  Soho  had 
long  been  narrowing  to  a  slit  proportioned  inversely, 
quite  justly,  to  that  smell  which  Frank  carried  about 
him,  on  these  suppliant  calls,  as  of  husks  that  swine 
do  eat,  till  at  last  the  door  opened,  for  once,  strangely 
wide,  and  a  shape  that  he  readily  knew  now  for  the 
good  genius  of  his  father's  house  crossed  the  hall — 
it  neared  him — Iwrribilc  znsit,  it  ran — was  a  running 
kick  gathering  momentum  ?  He  turned  in  flight ;  then 
he  awoke,  having  dreamed  not  wholly  untruly. 

Not  that  his  friends  would  have  kicked  him,  before 
men.  Their  hearts  would  have  bled  to  know  that  the 
world  knew  that  in  that  nest  of  nests  a  bad  egg  could 
be  laid.  Yet  Frank  smelt  to  heaven :  into  the  outer 
darkness  he  had  to  pack,  one  way  or  other,  and  if  in  a 
fog,  it  would  become  him.  They  did  not  feel  this, 
however,  just  now,  being  indeed  all  asleep,  and  that  not 
on  their  feet,  like  this  wicked  one,  but  supine,  like  the 
just.  All  the  tribe,  except  Frank,  had  great  heads; 
they  would  sit  half  the  night  drinking  less  than  ap- 
peared with  a  fuddlesome  prince,  or  enduring  the  man- 
ners of  some  boor  or  goose  of  a  great  man  with  places 
to  give,  or  refraining  from  throwing  the  first  or  any 
subsequent  stone  at  ladies  whom  kings  delighted  to 
honor;  and,  these  dues  to  charity  paid,  they  would 
sleep  their  ten  hours  apiece  and  look  like  good  babies 
till  their  untroubled  gray  eyes  opened  and  sought  the 
sources  of  loaves  and  fishes  again,  as  a  child's  seek 
the  light. 


4  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

A  dog  may  have  been  whipped  pretty  tame  by  its 
owner  and  yet  fly  at  the  man  who  affronts  that  true 
god.  Frank  had  reciprocated  the  sergeant's  kick,  not 
so  much  in  wrath  for  himself — long  tavern  practice  had 
made  him  a  thought  lax  as  a  sentinel  of  his  private 
honor — but  lest  the  pure  name  of  his  house  should 
take  a  stain  if  even  its  scapegoat,  stumping  off  into  the 
desert,  accepted  a  kick  gratis  from  a  low  man.  But 
all  sergeants  do  not  draw  these  distinctions;  so  it  was 
under  arrest  that  Frank  marched  on  from  Highgate  to 
prosecute  his  conquests.  He  grieved  at  this :  he  hated 
black  looks;  he  classed  them  with  unfilled  cans.  His 
way  to  be  at  peace  with  men  was  a  stream's  way  with 
stones :  when  his  devious  flow  brought  him  down  on  a 
large  and  hard  one,  he  gave,  rounded  him,  and  wound 
on.  By  the  time  they  had  dipped  down  from  Finchley 
to  ford  the  bogged  hollow  beyond  and  climb  to  the 
houses  capping  Barnet  Hill,  Frank's  spirit  had  broken 
already,  good-humoredly,  to  get  round  this  boulder- 
some  sergeant. 

From  Barnet  the  posse  of  scarecrows  dropped  again 
to  cross  the  wide  scoop  to  Ridge  Hill,  and  from  Ridge 
Hill  the  abbey  church  of  St.  Albans  was  seen  huge  on 
its  opposite  height,  its  straight  lines  lifting  out  of  the 
cumulus  clouds  of  tree-top  round  it.  That  was  their 
day's  work,  to  reach  St.  Albans.  It  was  a  Sunday ; 
nearly  all  day  there  was  a  ringing  of  bells,  rising  and 
falling  as  each  village  came  to  the  marchers'  feet  and 
was  passed,  the  peal  behind  them  scarcely  tinkling 
away  into  silence  before  they  crossed  the  rim  of  the 
circle  of  music  shaken  out  by  the  belfry  that  came  next. 


PROLOGUE  5 

In  his  pleasures  Frank  was  no  bigot;  he  took  any; 
failing  good  wine,  and  then  bad,  he  would  get  drunk 
on  things  heard  and  seen.  He  swam  luxuriously  now 
in  a  sense  of  Sabbatical,  pastoral  peace  suave  to 
battered  town  ears.  Bells  stopped  and  a  cock  crowed ; 
he  heard  it  wonderfully  far  away.  It  cleared  and  the 
birds  burst  out  together,  singing  grace  after  rain,  and 
the  bells  went  at  it  again,  hill  talking  to  hill  about  God 
— so  Frank  imaged  it;  he  was  a  rapturous  Christian  for 
several  hours ;  peace  on  earth  was  the  thing,  and  good- 
will to  sergeants.  As  they  trailed  uphill  in  the  dark 
into  St.  Albans,  the  two  that  had  kicked  at  dawn 
were  made  one  by  exchange  of  intimate  thoughts 
on  the  traits  without  which  ale  would  scarcely  be 
ale. 

Monday  would  launch  them  on  the  ruled,  horrible 
straightness  of  the  Roman  road  north-westward,  the 
brown  mud  whitening  on  their  boots  till  they  dragged 
balled  heels  out  through  the  high  nick  in  the  chalk 
sky-line,  past  Dunstable,  and  washed  the  white  off  in 
the  Hockley  puddles.  On  Tuesday  morning,  no  doubt, 
they  would  sweat  and  swear  up  the  long  slant  to  Brick- 
hill,  still  topped  to-day  by  the  tiny  court  of  assize  that 
they  saw,  and  let  themselves  down  to  the  green  floor 
wetted  or,  as  books  say,  drained  by  the  Ouse.  And 
then  the  next  day,  and  the  next,  and  the  next;  one's 
vision  dims  as  they  go;  they  recede  towards  Chester 
and  Ireland.  From  live  men,  of  whom  one  would 
always  spit  on  his  hand  where  his  musket  slipped,  and 
another  at  every  halt  would  shift  the  rag  on  a  raw  toe, 
they   sink  into  a  "  force  ':    and   Frank's  self   into   a 


G  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

'  type,"  the  common  Reuben  who,  being  unstable  as 
water,  and  much  averse  from  it,  could  not  excel. 

Yet  this  Reuben  was  to  beget  in  the  West  a  dynasty 
nearer  to  Levi's  in  function,  and  puissant  enough  in 
body  to  make  meetly  leonine  sons  for  the  lion's  whelp, 
Judah.  In  the  winter  of  1887-8  a  boat  capsized  on 
Lough  Neagh  and  one  of  the  two  men  drowned  was 
a  Father  James  Browne.  They  gave  him  a  great 
funeral,  to  vex  the  Protestants.  Eight  Brownes,  rods 
of  the  house  of  Frank,  walked  after  the  coffin,  five  of 
them  priests  and  all  the  eight  men  of  a  fine  bony  struc- 
ture, like  hunting  horses,  six  feet  one  or  two  apiece, 
and  grand  leapers  and  swimmers  in  youth,  like  the  one 
now  drowned,  who  had  swum  half  a  mile  towards 
shore  in  his  clothes,  towing  the  boat  by  the  painter, 
keel  upwards,  with  two  boatmen  praying  and  wailing 
astride  it,  until  the  cold  cramped  the  stout  Father's 
muscles  up  into  knots  and  he  sank  in  the  act  of  absolv- 
ing the  men  horsed  on  the  keel. 

The  eight  sat  up  a  long  time  that  night,  gabbing 
family  history:  even  priests  will,  at  a  birth  or  funeral. 
One  of  the  clan  had  been  all  but  made  head  of  May- 
nooth ;  that  was  a  great  thing.  The  grayest  was  made 
to  retell  how  his  father  had  told  him  in  1830  the  way 
that  his  father  was  carried  home  dying  in  1798  with 
his  entrails  exposed  where  the  English  had  flogged  him 
upon  the  abdomen.  The  others  listened  as  Christians, 
about  the  year  100,  might  hear  from  an  aged  witness 
how  Christ's  eyes  had  turned  this  way  and  that  on  the 
Cross.  And  then  the  family  manfully  faced  the  black 
fact  of   "  souper "    Browne  that  went   thrice   to  the 


PROLOGUE  7 

Protestant  church  in  the  old  Penal  days,  to  save  the 
rich  land  that  he  had. 

"  x\h,  then,  if  the  souper  were  all,"  broke  out  Father 
John,  a  child  of  impulse ;  but  even  he  checked  at  the 
look  he  got  from  the  rest.  Grief  behind  grief,  shame 
beyond  shame — if  you  probe  far  enough,  in  the 
very  best  houses  you  may  attain  the  unmention- 
able. 

Patrick,  the  big  grazier  from  Banaghan,  plunged, 
for  escape,  into  talk  of  a  great  hope  he  had  that  the 
family  name  might  not  be  Browne  at  all,  nor  anything 
English,  but  Brian  itself.  If  one  man  would  set  foot 
in  a  Protestant  church  to  keep  a  hold  of  his  land,  what 
would  prevent  another  from  stripping  the  very  name 
off  his  own  back,  or  putting  an  English  look  on  it,  to 
keep  the  life  in  him,  God  help  him? 

The  seven  strained  hard  to  believe.  No  use ;  a 
savage  honesty,  that  would  have  been  looked  on  and  let 
whole  civilizations  founder  for  want  of  a  lie,  compelled 
them.  What  hope  could  there  be?  For  more  than 
two  hundred  and  sixty  years  there  had  been  tenant 
Brownes  on  the  books  of  Lord  Dunster,  beyond.  And 
there  was  the  tough  old  tradition  of  that  English 
trooper  ancestor;  even  his  ring  was  here,  on  Father 
Horace's  hand ;  broad  gold  with  an  oval  engraved  gem, 
Greco-Roman,  some  Renaissance  find,  it  had  worn 
thinner  now  on  eight  generations  of  little  fingers,  the 
only  finger  an  Irish  Browne  could  put  into  it — thinner, 
and  yet,  as  evidence,  it  was  still  gross.  They  handed  it 
round.  Father  Horace  translated  the  words  inscribed 
inside  the  gold  band  : — 


8  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

"  Francisco  Browne,  d.d.  W.S.    Londin.    MDCVII." 

Shakespeare  himself  might  have  given  the  thing  to 
a  young  Oxford  wit,  or  enjoyer  of  wit,  wild  for  the 
playhouse. 

They  considered  the  letters.  "  London  " — that  was 
deadly.  "  Ach,  they're  cut  to  the  depth  of  a  ditch," 
Patrick  said  gloomily,  handing  it  back  to  the  head  of 
the  family.  Wear  it  another  hundred  years  and  per- 
haps—  The  head  of  the  family  rubbed  it  round  ab- 
sently on  his  finger. 

They  sought  comfort  from  figures.  The  Frank  of 
the  ring  was  said  to  have  married  some  decent  woman ; 
their  child  would  be  half-Irish.  That  child's  child,  if 
again  there  were  no  misalliance,  would  be  Irish  three 
parts  out  of  four ;  its  child,  again,  would  have  only  one- 
eighth  of  it  English;  the  next,  one-sixteenth.  They 
themselves  would  be  Irish  at  least  to  the  length  of  a 
hundred  and  twenty-seven  to  one.  Not  a  doubt,  that 
was  why  Father  John,  the  first  time  that  ever  he  spoke 
the  Gaelic,  had  felt  that  his  tongue  had  not  been  a  fit 
for  his  mouth  till  that  day. 

Part  of  their  bodies'  history  stared  out  of  them.  All 
that  was  clay  was  glorious ;  muscles  modeled  in  potent 
thongs  that  clenched  and  gave,  gave  and  clenched, 
musingly  flicking  under  clear  skins  on  which  the  red 
lived  and  flitted;  full  eyes,  bright  and  wild  like  a 
caught  animal's;  heads  not  stuck  on  stumps  of  thick 
poles,  but  lifted  on  swayed  stems  with  the  look  that 
some  flowers  have  of  reaching  up  at  the  sun,  with  a  pull 
on  their  moorings  to  earth.     They  walked  like  the 


PROLOGUE  9 

creatures  of  unjaded  gait — blood  horses,  greyhounds, 
red  deer  and  some  athletes  when  young — in  whom  each 
step  seems  to  be  an  inquisitive  and  shy  caress  offered 
to  the  ground,  as  if  the  feel  of  the  earth,  its  mass  and 
springiness,  were  a  fresh  marvel  still. 

The  clay  told  of  the  pit  from  which  it  was  dug. 
Earth-loving  earth,  you  might  figure  them  crumbling 
clods,  from  farms  of  their  own,  in  affectionate  hands, 
alone  with  the  tilth  and  the  straining  life  in  themselves 
and  the  cutting  leash  of  their  Irish  chastity.  Some 
tricks  of  look  might  have  been  caught  from  fathers 
on  whom  the  lines  that  old  age  found  waiting  for  it  to 
fix  had  been  drawn  and  redrawn  as  they  peered  with 
half -closed  eyes  through  the  fog  that  ascends  from 
steaming  and  slipping  droves,  or  along  the  last  furrow 
at  twilight,  or  watched  from  under  the  drip  of  their 
eaves  the  day-long  beat,  beat  of  rain  that  lodged  the 
year's  oats  or  rotted  the  year's  potatoes,  their  hearts 
still  somberly  filial  to  the  soil  that  their  minds  cried  out 
on :  the  niggard,  the  harridan,  what  did  she  do  for  a 
son? 

So  these  eight  felt,  like  their  fathers;  and  after  a 
while,  if  you  heard  them  talk,  you  might  see  what  it 
was  that  kept  this  bitter  and  disenchanted  affection 
short  of  despair  and  disablement.  They  were  all 
priests  in  a  way ;  more  so  than  most  priests ;  they  had 
cowls  in  their  dispositions ;  they  felt,  with  the  positive- 
ness  of  bodily  sense,  that  to  live  was  only  to  stand 
awhile  in  a  lobby,  with  everything,  that  men  could  have 
come  for,  waiting  beyond  the  next  door.  Gymnasts 
will  pass  from  one  swinging  trapeze  to  another,  high 


10  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

in  the  air :  so  these  Brownes  seemed  to  have  let  go  the 
common  human  idea — yours  and  mine,  whatever  we 
say — of  life  as  a  whole  and  round  thing,  to  be  lived  out 
with  a  will;  they  had  clutched  at  the  thought  of  it  all  as 
no  more  than  a  blank  hour's  wait  in  the  cold  for  a  dawn. 
The  new  grip  had  swung  them  away  from  the  old, 
through  naked  space,  and  now  they  felt  safe  while  the 
grip  held,  but  still  redoubtably  committed ;  it  gone,  they 
could  see  their  way  out  of  their  minds.  Black,  beyond 
soupers,  would  any  one  be  who  loosened  another's 
grasp;  the  mind  had  to  search  far  for  the  likeness  of 
that  last  baseness.  Rats  that  the  Dutch  hunt  to  death 
lest  they  bore  the  hole  that  may  flood  a  province? 
No.  Rats  are  innocents;  they  do  not  know.  Say, 
rather,  a  guard  put  in  charge  of  a  dike,  who  opens  the 
sluices  by  night  to  drown  out  country  and  friends. 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR 


CHAPTER  I 

"  But  they — their  day  and  night  are  one. 

What  is't  to  them  that  rivulets  run, 

Or  what  concern  of  theirs  the  sun? 

It  seems  as  though 

Their  business  with  these  things  were  done 

Ages  ago." 

William  Watson. 

INTO  the  lustrous  peace  that  had  hushed,  one  still 
afternoon  in  September,  the  westward-turned  ter- 
race of  Roc-a-Voir  Inn,  high  on  a  sunned  alp  of  the 
Valais,  there  broke,  as  a  boy's  stone  fractures  the 
pensive  and  unaware  glass  of  a  pond,  the  news  that 
some  one  was  certainly  coining  uphill — might  indeed 
reach  the  inn  in  two  hours.  A  waiter's  eye,  sleepily 
roaming  the  landscape,  had  sighted  a  speck,  one  that 
moved.  Like  a  black  fly  it  traversed  a  bleached  shoot 
of  stones,  three  thousand  feet  under  the  terrace.  A 
speck,  or  two  specks?  Running  in  for  the  glass  he 
made  sure.  One  speck,  strictly  speaking:  one  mon- 
sieur only ;  the  other,  simply  a  guide. 

The  waiter  awoke  the  bureau;  for  there,  too,  in- 
visible poppies  were  seeding.  The  faint  buzz-uzz-uzz 
of  the  voice  of  the  landlady,  totting  up  columns  of 

11 


12  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

francs  in  her  bower,  had  thinned  down  to  stillness; 
will  failed  her,  the  strong  bee  invaded  by  autumn,  even 
to  index  the  dying  year's  honey ;  she  leant  back,  her 
eyes  slowly  filming ;  dozing,  she  mused  on  those  other 
dozers,  four  of  them,  out  on  the  terrace,  her  summer's 
lingering  roses — the  last,  she  half  hoped,  if  the  hope 
were  not  sin ;  were  they  gone,  bees  could  sleep  and  not 
dream  of  missed  provender.  Roused  by  the  waiter  she 
mastered  a  sigh  and  heard  him  out  benignly.  Her 
equity  valued  his  dutiful  soul.  At  eight  thousand  feet 
any  news  is  a  thrill  that  should  be  in  the  gift  of  a  land- 
lady, no  one  less.  He  had  done  well ;  he  had  not,  while 
she  slept,  usurped  the  prerogative.  Issuing  forth  she 
imparted  the  glass  to  the  terrace.  "  Pardon !  A  gen- 
tleman— mounting — now,  at  the  end  of  the  season.  It 
is  a  resolute.     He  will  be  English." 

So  Madame  tactfully  said;  for  our  own  was  the 
speech  that  had  drowsed,  for  some  ten  minutes  past,  on 
the  lips  of  the  four  semi-recumbents  whose  four  iron 
chairs,  stilled  for  that  space,  now  resumed  their  life's 
task  of  scrunching  the  neatly-raked  miniature  desert  of 
round  pebbles  in  which  they  stood.  For  the  inn, 
though  high,  was  not  rude;  had  it  been  so,  it  would 
have  been  empty  to-day;  far  from  it,  the  legs  of  terrace 
chairs  waded  here  in  pebbles  as  round,  loose  and  dry 
as  any  that  crepitate  under  the  planes  of  the  first  hotels 
of  Lausanne.  The  resumptive  sound  of  scrunching 
was  loudest,  as  the  recess  had  achieved  deepest  silence, 
under  the  person  of  Gabriel  Newman,  a  pink  and 
pleased  man  of  about  twenty-three,  with  thinning  blond 
hair  plastered  tight,  in  the  fashion,  and  damply  gloving 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  13 

the  skull,  and  with  scarcely  more  lines  or  puffs  as  yet 
on  his  forehead  and  cheeks  than  if  he  had  lived  well. 
What  with  the  gentle  bend  of  the  chin,  the  softly  aqui- 
line nose, the  smoothly-filled  cheeks  and  the  bulge  of  the 
eyes,  and  the  curvilinear  lines  of  the  smile  with  which 
he  always  talked,  his  shaven  face  might  strike  you 
as  just  a  little  too  rich  a  system  of  convexities,  much  as 
Michelangelo's  luxuriant  "  Drunken  Bacchus  "  might 
afflict  a  trainer.  But  any  grazier  would  say  that  man 
or  beast  could  not  have  looked  more  evenly  fed.  One 
thing  this  goodly  frame  wanted — a  left  leg;  it  used  one 
of  wood,  or  else  the  faith  fullest  image  that  Nature 
could  carve,  in  her  own  flesh  and  bone,  of  that  work  of 
man.  No  one  knew  which,  nor  had  Newman  been 
known  to  admit,  by  so  much  as  a  wince  or  an  oath — 
though  he  had  the  latter  within  easy  call — that  he 
walked  with  some  pain  on  two  sticks  which  were  all 
but  crutches,  still  less  that  he  ever  had  to  halt  when 
minded  to  walk  in  the  ways  of  his  heart  and  in  the 
sight  of  his  eyes. 

This  sovereign  spirit  had  drooped  for  some  instants : 
a  crossing  shadow  had  chilled  it.  How  unripe  a 
knowledge,  how  stumbling  a  reason,  how  shallow  a 
flow  of  conjecture  did  this  Yankee  paper  from  Paris, 
that  now  sprawled  despised  on  his  knees,  address  to  the 
Autumn  Handicaps,  soon  to  stir  England !  Newman 
had  mourned  for  his  kind,  that  it  should  not  do  better. 
Then  Nature,  good  to  her  infants,  had  filled  him  that 
bath  of  rose-tinted  warmth  from  the  west,  and  his  eyes 
had  closed  to  be  soothed  by  it,  some  unspent  virtue  of 
luncheon   assisting.     Newman   snored  and   care   left 


14  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

him.  Guy  Hathersage,  basking  more  containedly  beside 
him,  lifted  one  eyelid,  as  sleeping  cats  do  at  a  sound, 
and  smiled  to  himself  as  the  mouth  of  his  friend  fell 
a-gape  and  the  newspaper  slipped  to  the  ground  from 
his  friend's  slackening  fingers.  Simple  system  of  or- 
gans, Gabriel ! 

Guy  let  fall  the  eyelid  and  mused  on  that  system. 
To  Guy  it  had  charmless  piquancy.  Many  things  had, 
and  most  people.  If  nothing  excited  him,  plenty  of 
things  made  him  slightly  curious  about  them  at  first. 
An  olive-skinned  slip  of  a  man,  full  of  grace,  a  swayed 
osier  to  look  at,  Guy  was  bodily  young  for  his  twenty- 
two  years.  His  pretty  brown  eyes  had,  when  he  talked, 
the  quick,  shy  shift  of  a  boy's  when  they  will  not  be 
still  lest  you  catch  the  wild  soul  in  them.  Guy's  mind, 
however,  was  aged;  friendlily,  equably  aged.  Semi- 
amused  almost  always,  hardly  ever  delighted,  from 
people  he  looked  for  no  thrill — only  some  neat,  new 
patness  of  proof  that  no  miracles  come  to  vary  the 
working,  and  ceasing  to  work,  of  the  known  springs 
and  checks  in  a  shopful  of  watches  of  many  shapes — 
yet  not  so  very  many,  and  none  novel,  and  most  of 
them  dusty. 

Thirty  yards  off — the  younger  men  had  been  smok- 
ing, and  manners  survived  in  the  Hathersage  family — 
Guy's  sister  sat  by  their  father,  a  sixty-year  man  with 
a  trim  beard,  not  carved,  but  compendious  by  nature, 
and  now  hemmed  with  gray,  and  so  perfectly  brushed 
that  you  seemed  to  have  seen  no  brushed  beard  before; 
a  man  so  well  bred  that  each  feature  showed  like  a  sign 
in  some  new  code  specially  made  for  the  quick  and  safe 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  15 

conveyance  of  fragile  perceptions  and  courtesies; 
round,  opened  eyes  like  a  wren's,  bright  in  an  instant 
with  delicate  ventures  and  fears;  lips  modeled  as  if 
to  shape  ironies  gently  or  soften  a  tone  in  mercy  to 
humble  absurdity. 

June,  the  girl  of  nineteen,  had  Guy's  good  looks, 
or  more;  but  not,  you  would  say,  his  tireless  good- 
humor.  At  present  she  eyed  with  settled  disfavor, 
through  almost  closed  lids,  some  three  of  the  ten  noblest 
snow  peaks  in  Europe.  They  stood  up,  beyond  the 
now  blackening  trench  of  the  valley  below,  paraded  like 
Graces  before  this  youthful  she-Paris,  and  she  found 
them  wanting,  like  some  other  things  in  the  past  month 
of  travel,  her  father's  and  hers.  Venice  and  Paris, 
Florence  and  Fiesole,  Rimini,  Vallombrosa,  Ancona, 
all  were  reviewed  and  rebuked.  Paris  was  dust  and 
white  faces  and  leaves  early  dead,  and  dresses  tried  on 
— memory  shuddered  at  thought  of  all  that  trying-on; 
and  then  all  that  time  in  the  train ;  the  waking  in  the 
sleeping-car  to  see  an  old  Frenchwoman,  risen  at  grisly 
dawn,  remake  her  face  of  bluish  white  against  the  new 
day;  and  what  a  day! — of  perpetual  pattering  rain, 
gazed  upon  numbly  through  streaming  or  misted  panes 
during  long,  nauseous  dining-car  meals  that  paused 
much  in  their  middles,  but  little  between  each  one  and 
the  next.  And,  all  the  way  south  from  Lugano, 
churches,  galleries;  galleries,  churches,  and  always — 
she  hated  herself  for  remembering — the  voice  of  her 
father,  seemlily  modulous,  weaving  its  webs  of  picked, 
relevant  comment  between  her  and  so  many  things 
which — she  dimly  suspected — had  little  to  do  with  the 


16  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

world  he  walked  in,  a  world  of  culture  fallen  rather 
a-weary,  half-understanding  everything,  placing  every- 
thing, summoning  up  at  the  instance  of  every  new 
thing,  or  thing  newly  seen,  its  appropriate  mood  of 
semi-emotion,  as  settled  by  balance  of  expert  authority. 
Webs  of  blown  rain  between  her  and  the  St.  Gotthard 
snows;  webs  of  pertinent,  passionless  words  between 
her  and  Bellini's  tranced  sense  of  the  wonder  of 
motherhood ;  curtains  of  ordered,  raptureless  reverence 
hung  between  her  and  that  "  Crucifixion  "  at  Rome 
just  when  it  seemed  as  if — one  instant  more  and  she 
might  have  held  and  made  hers  the  strange,  poignant 
delight  of  knowing,  really  knowing,  as  one  knows  one's 
headaches,  what  Christ  had  borne;  everywhere  wisps 
of  one  cobwebby  lawn  or  another  drawn  between  some- 
thing in  her  that  desired  to  put  itself  forth  and  attain 
completeness  and  something  outside  her  that  must, 
surely,  answer  to  this,  some  new  visibleness  awaiting  a 
quickened  sight,  like  the  many  stars  that  must  be 
shining  only  just  out  of  reach  of  one's  eyes.  She  came 
out  of  reverie  frowning,  to  take  Madame's  offered 
field-glass  without  curiosity. 

"  Far  down,  mademoiselle.  Now !  Now ! — they 
pass  Bonaveau." 

Two  miles  downhill  a  spot  of  black  crossed  swiftly 
the  whitewashed  wall  of  a  tiny  wayside  chapel. 

"  There !  There ! "  Madame  fretted  lest  June 
miss  the  thrill.  "  Where  the  path  runs  out  from  un- 
der the  pines." 

"Yes,  yes;  one  has  eyes."  And  then  June,  with 
the  glass  at  her  eyes,  bit  her  lip,  vexed  at  her  petulance. 


THE  MORNINGS  WAR  17 

Three  days  before  she  had  prayed  in  that  very  chapel, 
a  little  dourly,  that  she  might  be  better-tempered. 
Already  the  fleeting  stain  was  off  the  white  wall. 
"  How  they  run !  "  she  said  to  her  father.  How  little 
she  cared  if  they  flew. 

"Two  Oreads?'  murmured  the  elder.  'Swift 
as  a  horse  up  a  steep  hill.'  He  had  always  at  call 
some  one  else's  apt  word.  When  brought  up  against 
a  new  thing  he  would  act  like  a  yachtsman  touching  a 
pier,  swinging  out  fenders  wherever  his  paint  might  be 
scraped  against  some  reality's  rude  balks  of  timber. 
Letters  and  art — to  change  the  figure — this  sensitive 
soul  had  learned  to  spread  like  a  gelatine  film  over  all 
its  naked,  soft  surface,  lest  life,  the  neat  strength  of  the 
acid,  bite  through  and  engrave.  '  Is  it  he  that  should 
come?  "  he  asked  June. 

"Father  Power?  No.  He  comes  to-morrow. 
Didn't  I  tell  you  the  day?  " 

"  Doubtless,  my  dear.  You  printed  on  dust — my 
poor  memory." 

June  could  almost  have  shrieked  at  that  mild,  let- 
tered playfulness.  Then,  at  a  thought  of  her  own, 
crossness  collapsed  in  contrition.  "  Oh,  father,  it's  I 
that  forget.  I  was  to  have  ordered  his  room,  and  I've 
not  told  Madame  he  is  coming.     Madame !  ' 

'  Mademoiselle  ? ':  The  landlady  listened.  A  friend 
of  her  guest's,  a  cure  from  Ireland — "  Catholic,  Ma- 
dame, like  you  too,  and  us  " — was  going  to  Rome,  a 
pilgrim ;  he  would  be  passing  by  train  to-morrow, 
down  there  in  the  valley,  and  wished  to  break  the 
journey.     Could  Madame  receive  him? 


18  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

'  But  yes."  Madame's  gesture  embraced  in  its 
scope  the  two  walkers  now  breasting  the  steep,  and  this 
later  clerical  advent.      '  It  recommences,  the  season." 

June  had  handed  the  glass  to  her  father,  whose 
courtesy  used  it,  not  his  desire.  Two  thousand  eight 
hundred  feet  lower  the  sun,  as  Mr.  Hathersage  looked, 
caught  the  sweat  on  the  guide's  dripping  face  and  on 
a  chest  bared  to  get  air.  They  shone ;  they  might  have 
been  vizor  and  breastplate  in  Paradise.  "  Ah !  "  said 
the  sensitive  gentleman.  Softly  he  shuffled  across,  to 
leave  the  glass  with  Newman,  and  went  indoors  to  read 
Pascal  in  coolness. 


CHAPTER  II 

"  And  deliver  us  from  our  daily  bread." 

Mariana's  Prayer. 

IT  was  not  in  Newman  to  be  surprised  visibly.  To 
animate  narratives,  later,  he  might  say  that  this  or 
that  imbecility  of  a  friend's  had  amazed  him;  but  no 
one,  he  justly  boasted,  had  ever  seen  him  knocked  all  of 
a  heap,  like  some  poor  lambs,  by  any  impact  of  circum- 
stance. So,  when  he  had  taken  a  long  stare  through 
the  glass  and,  putting  it  down,  said  "  Gorlummy !  "  it 
was  as  a  virtuoso  in  popular  speech  that  he  said  it, 
and  not  as  one  from  whom  the  orison  was  really  torn 
by  the  shock  of  an  idea's  entry  on  the  spirit. 

Guy  breathed  a  lazy  "  Amen." 

"  Know  one  Browne  at  Oxford?  "  asked  Newman. 
"Didyer?     One  Browne?" 

"Of  Auriol?" 

"  Yes.     Year  junior  to  me." 

"  I  don't  know  about  '  know.'  I've  met  him,  per- 
haps." 

"  You'll  meet  him  again.  He's  that  Derby  winner 
that's  belting  uphill." 

Guy  took  the  glass,  without  ardor,  and  looked. 
"  The  more  shining  face,  or  the  less?  " 

"  The  unsweatiest.  How's  he  to  sweat,  with  the  life 
he  led?     Now,   do  you  know" — Newman  gathered 

19 


20  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

impressiveness — "  that  man  would  come  into  Pole's 
rooms  at  Auriol  dead  sober — you  see,  you  were  always 
supposed  to  be  blind  in  Pole's  rooms — and  there  he'd 
be,  making  a  fool  of  himself,  sitting  up  in  a  chair, 
among  all  of  us." 

"Preaching?" 

'  No.  Just  looking  on.  No,  he  isn't  a  pi  man, 
exactly.  I  do  say  that  for  him.  A  pi  man  I  knew 
took  him  on — about  his  soul,  that  sort  of  lay;  found 
he  didn't  believe  a  Jack  thing.  And  yet,  do  you 
know  " — again  Newman's  manner  grew  graver — "  I've 
seen  that  man  reading  away  at  the  Bible  as  if  it  were 
some  other  book — as  if  he  liked  it." 

;'  Ah?  '  Guy  encouraged  the  vein.  It  was  sport  to 
see  Newman,  in  sketching  this  newcomer,  sketch  him- 
self too. 

'*  Caught  him  at  it  in  bed,"  pursued  Newman,  "  one 
night  I  got  lost.  I  was  crossing  the  quad,  time  of 
night  when  a  path  gets  as  broad  as  it's  long.  I  fell 
into  his  rooms  and  there  he  was,  at  it.  I  thought  he 
must  be  ill  or  something.  'What's  wrong?'  I  said. 
'  Going  to  be  hanged  in  the  morning?  '  I  said,  just  to 
cheer  him.  He  let  a  yell.  '  Wrong!  I  should  think 
not !  The  man  who  wrote  "  Job  "  was  all  right.  Lis- 
ten, about  all  these  beasts !  '  And  off  he  went,  spout- 
ing whole  chunks.  It  might  have  been  the  evening 
paper." 

"  I  give  you  the  thanks  of  the  Press." 

"  Press  ?     What  ?     Oh,  I  forgot  that  you  own  a  rag 


now." 


Three-sixteenths  only — the  merest  shred  of  a — 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  21 

must  we  say? — rag.  So  far  has  the  will  of  a  great- 
aunt  involved  me.  Don't  stop.  What  did  you  say 
when  Browne — " 

"  Say?  I  bolted  for  my  stable.  Didn't  seem  right, 
somehow,  having  a  good  time  like  that  with  the  Bible. 
Very  next  night  I  met  Chadd — it  was  under  Blunt's 
table,  I  think ;  anyhow,  things  had  run  a  bit  clear  in 
my  head  and  I  told  him.  It  troubled  Chadd  fearfully. 
'  Why,  for  a  skeptic  to  do  it,'  said  Chadd,  '  it's  like 
drawing  a  check  on  a  bank  you've  no  money  at.' 
Chadd  cried  to  think  of  it.  You  see,  although  he  could 
take  his  drink  like  other  people,  Chadd  was  a  serious 
man,  really — plowed  in  divinity,  that  sort  of  thing, 
and  a  curate  by  now.  '  Think  of  the  sinfulness  ' — 
that's  what  he  said — '  sheer  false  pretenses,  like  saying 
'  Gorblimey ! '  although  you're  an  infidel."  Well, 
there's  a  good  lot  in  that.     Whajja  think?  ' 

'  I  was  thinking,"  Guy  said,  with  an  air  of  innocent 
dreaminess,  "  that  I  remembered  Browne  well.  He 
used  to  speak  sweetly  of  you." 

'Eh?  What?'  Newman  pricked  up  disquieted 
ears. 

'  He  said,  '  I  just  like  the  very  notion  of  Newman  ' 
— Browne  was  staring  across  through  the  smoke  at 
you;  '  I  like  that  honest  hatred  he  has  of  learning  and 
poverty.  He's  such  a  spess ! '  Browne  doated  upon 
you,  like  a  collector.  He  told  me  a  charming  story; 
he'd  brought  to  your  rooms  some  pundit  who'd  won 
half  the  'Varsity  prizes,  and  you  had  said  afterwards, 
'  One  or  two  blighters  like  that  were  enough  to  ruin 
a  whole  college.'  " 


22  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

"  Well,  what  would  you  say,  with  that  sort  of  owl 
coming  flapping  round,  when  you  had  some  hopes  of 
the  freshers?  " 

'  I  should  bleed  for  you.  Browne,  no  doubt,  did ; 
or — "  Guy  dangled  the  unuttered  words  like  a  cast 
of  dry  flies. 

"  Well  ?  "     Newman  rose  to  them. 

"  You  know  his  trade?  " 

"  Lord,  no  !  " 

"  Proud  man!     I  do.     I'm  half  in  it." 

"Mean  he's  a  blooming  reporter?" 

"  Novelist,  journalist,  dramatist — all  the  same  thing, 
you  know;  workers  in  fiction.  You've  read  his 
novel?" 

"  Not  heard  of  it." 

'  Yet  the  world  does — and  of  a  play  that's  just  com- 
ing.    And  now  do  you  guess?  " 

"Eh?" 

"  That  at  Pole's  you  were — possibly — sitting?" 

"  D'you  mean  he'd  have  the  wickedness  to — ?  ' 

"  These  artists  do  use  the  model,  you  know." 

Like  a  child,  that  without  wilful  cruelty  tickles  a 
worm  with  a  leaf,  Guy  fretted  his  friend.  Newman 
was  only  a  book,  the  one  nearest  to  hand,  the  library's 
latest  futility,  sent  to  amuse  if  it  could.  Guy  gave  it 
its  chance,  hoping  little ;  he  languidly  turned  the  pages ; 
he  opened  the  stout,  vulgar  soul  at  new  chapters,  its 
boasts  and  pluck  and  lusts  and  tremors.  Any  paper- 
knife  served;  Browne,  this  orient  author,  as  well  as 
another.  Guy  really  remembered  Browne  now — their 
few  meetings  at  Oxford,  and  then  a  slight  gap  while 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  23 

Browne  was  obscure,  and  then  how  Guy  had  thought 
they  really  must  have  Browne  to  dinner ;  they  always 
had  rising  authors  to  dinner,  on  the  off-chance  that 
they  might  be  amusing.  Blabbing  to  Newman  what 
Browne  had  said  of  him  might  not  have  been  very  nice, 
now  that  Guy  came  to  think  of  it.  Still,  if  it  made 
any  trouble,  he  would  not  have  meant  the  trouble ;  in- 
deed, he  would  wish  quite  sincerely  that  harm  had  not 
come,  and  would  stand  off  a  little  and  eye  himself  with 
mild  wonder  and  ask,  without  harshness,  what  could 
have  made  him  do  it. 

All  the  harshness  the  family  had  of  that  kind  was 
lodged  in  his  sister,  a  true  hanging  judge  of  herself 
when  the  mood  was  on  her.  Vexed  that  she  had  for- 
gotten that  room — she  who  had  specially  asked  Father 
Power  to  come — she  was  going  assize  at  this  moment, 
hounding  to  judgment  each  poor  little  lapse  from  grace, 
or  from  graciousness,  during  their  month's  stern  chase 
of  civilized  pleasure.  How  she  had  murmured!  "Oh, 
I  am  vexed!  v  "  I've  been  so  disappointed!  '  "  I've 
had  such  a  horrible  time!" — one  of  these  forms  or 
another  seemed  to  have  opened  all  her  talks  with  her 
father.  "  You  feel  relief  now  that  it's  fresher?  "  the 
poor  man  had  timidly  asked,  one  moon-lit  night,  at  the 
end  of  a  querulous  day  in  the  sunshine  near  Venice, 
when  ripples  of  water  and  ripples  of  music,  indistin- 
guishable in  their  rhythmic  coolness,  were  lapping  under 
their  gondola.  June's  answering  snap — "  I  might,  if 
this  frock  didn't  hurt  me  so  under  the  arms  " — came 
back  now  to  plague  its  inventor.  Then  that  day  of 
shame  at  Perugia!     Seeing  her  gaze   from  the  hill, 


24  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

out  over  blue  Umbria,  he  had  asked  friendlily,  nerv- 
ously, what  she  was  thinking,  and  she  had  brutally 
dashed  his  hopes  of  fit  local  emotions  with  "  I  was  just 
wondering  when  my  head  means  to  stop  aching."  And 
oh,  the  first  morning  at  Florence ! — the  start  to  walk 
down  from  Fiesole,  where  they  had  stayed;  how,  as 
they  set  out,  his  mind  was  happily  fingering  Dante  and 
Pater  and  Ruskin  and  Browning,  and  all  the  kind  in- 
terveners between  its  soft  tissues  and  stark  Middle 
Ages  or  unbated  Tuscany,  until,  scarcely  over  the 
threshold,  June  had  banished  content  with  the  desperate 
saying:  "I  promise  myself  no  pleasure  at  all  from 
this  walk,  the  wind  blows  my  hat  so."  That  clay  was 
the  nadir.  On  entering  the  windless  Uffizi  her  father 
had  ventured  tremblingly,  "  Now  I  hope  you'll  feel 
better,"  and  she  had  snarled,  "  Yes,  so  do  I,  I  am 
sure  ";  and  at  dinner  had  said,  as  she  viciously  shook 
her  napkin  out,  "  This  evening  meal  is  one  of  the  worst 
plagues  of  the  day  " — a  devil's  grace.  Grace  after 
meat  too :  her  father  had  offered  to  read  Michelangelo's 
sonnets,  out  on  the  Fiesole  terrace,  the  Val  d'Arno 
spread  out  below  them  in  deepening  purple  and  crim- 
son, and  she  had  said  darkly :  "  It  might  help  to  make 
us  to  forget  what  we've  eaten."  The  thought  of  each 
slip  into  some  base  sourness,  and  of  his  uncontrollable 
wince,  or  taxed  courtesy,  pierced  her  with  rusty  skew- 
ers. And  yet,  was  she  wrong?  Wrong  to  wound 
him,  of  course;  why  should  he  bear  the  sins  of  the 
world  ?  But  to  find  Europe  dusty,  dust  underfoot  and 
a  dust-filled  air? — what  else  was  it?  Paris  was  dust 
and  white  faces  and — so  the  old  wheels  of  bafflement, 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  25 

rage,  self-pity,  self -censure,  each  turning  the  next  with 
its  cogs,  ground  oillessly  round  in  her  mind. 

Guy  roused  her.  "  I  bring  you  a  marvel,"  he  said, 
but  his  tone  said  that  marvels  were  all  an  old  fable. 
The  man  coming  up,  he  told  her,  was  an  acquaintance. 

She  looked  up,  incurious.  "  The  marvel  would  be 
if  he  weren't.  Wasn't  the  man  we  ran  down  on 
Lugano — the  swimmer — your  first  fag  at  Harrow? 
Or  was  that  the  godson  of  some  one  papa  knew  in 
Parliament?  Why,  the  beggar  we  found  at  Torcello 
had  cleaned  boots  at  Rome,  at  the  Embassy,  when 
Uncle  Conrad  was  there." 

"  My  poor  sister,  you  touch  on  a  fatal  truth.  One 
friendly  soul  like  papa  can  run  through  a  whole  fam- 
ily's fortune  of  newness  in  people  it  meets.  Papa 
leaves  us  no  lands  undiscovered.  We  run  our  frail 
shallops  ashore,  you  and  I,  on  some  stranger — we  hope 
so,  at  least ;  we  leap  from  the  bows ;  all  ardent,  we  run 
up  appropriate  flags;  tiptoe,  we  peer  through  the  jun- 
gle. And  lo !  in  the  first  clearing,  embers !  Remains 
of  a  bamboo  erection,  signs  of  a  garden,  of  civiliza- 
tion. Despair! — it  is  one  of  papa's  disused  resi- 
dencies! Yet  let  me  be  just.  It  is  not  papa,  it  is 
Newman,  nay,  it  is  I,  who  have  met  yonder  climber." 

"  Climber?  '      Climber  or  walker,  little  she  cared. 

She  was  girding  within  at  Guy's  irony.  Why  should 
it  play  round  their  father's  dear  head?  But  had  not 
her  own  murmur  started  it?  So  the  old  wheels  of 
complaint  and  compunction  jarred  on  while  Guy  spoke. 

"  So  reason  tells  me.  Thus :  he  that  comes  has  a 
guide.     But  no  one  takes  guides  to  come  here  and  no 


26  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

further.  What  follows?  They  climb  in  the  morn- 
ing one  of  these  evil  eminences?" 

He  drew  her  eyes  round  to  the  snows  of  three  tall 
peaks  to  the  south-east,  behind  and  above  the  inn,  and 
now  flushing  to  warmth  in  the  first  red  of  sunset.  Up 
there,  for  an  eye  that  had  its  health,  all  was  dressed 
in  illusion,  to  wear  for  an  hour  at  most ;  frost  would 
then  model  dead  whiteness  in  iron  where  now  the  high 
snowfields  were  soft  laps  edged  with  pink,  restful  to 
lie  in,  it  seemed ;  sunny  ledges  and  terraces,  hoisted  and 
tilted  for  basking  upon ;  and  all  like  some  place  happily 
dreamt  of,  aglow  with  a  visionary  glamour;  made,  too, 
like  things  in  good  dreams,  without  hardness  of  struc- 
ture; fold  yielded  to  fold,  stair  swelled  convex  or  wave- 
like to  pass  into  stair;  only,  at  the  southernmost 
peak's  north-eastern  corner — the  Dent  Rouge  Guy  told 
her  the  peak  was — there  ran  up  a  steep  sky-line,  a 
framing  ridge  with  its  dark  rocks  half  bare,  a  slanting 
line  of  black  dots  like  a  route  pricked  out  on  a  map, 
with  the  fields  of  rose-tinted  snow  below  it,  and  fields 
of  sun-searched  blue  air  above.  It  looked  as  if  it 
must  lead  to  some  world's  wonder.  So,  at  least,  June 
dimly  felt,  not  having  the  single  eye's  vision,  and  yet 
having  a  blurred  sense  that  it  could  be  had,  did  one 
know  whither  to  strive. 

Guy  prattled  on  about  Browne — "  one  of  those 
dragons  of  energy,  enemies  to  peace  " — how  he  would 
drag  three  reluctants  from  bed  on  a  midsummer  Sun- 
day at  hours  unthought  of,  mythical,  before  Oxford's 
earliest  bell,  to  scull  and  tow  upstream  right  through 
the  sun's  working  day,  unwinding  strange  coils  of  the 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  27 

Isis  among  distant  meads.  "  He  says  '  Come  '  and  one 
cometh.  I  went  myself  once,  I  with  my  large  use  for 
sleep,  to  maintain  my  amenity.  How  the  man  diva- 
gates !  '  Guy  was  looking  down  through  the  glass. 
The  two  moving  spots  on  the  side  of  the  mountain,  still 
a  long  mile  from  the  inn,  would  part  for  a  while  and 
rejoin;  the  track  of  the  one  drew  with  a  plodding  pen- 
cil the  easiest  upward  route;  the  other  drew  loops  on 
each  side  of  that  line;  it  would  turn  aside,  visit  boul- 
ders and  gullies,  or  loiter  at  white  broken  water,  and 
then,  coming  back  straight  and  fast,  move  again  for  a 
while,  by  the  side  of  the  slow,  even  goer.  '  Convince 
yourself  " — Guy  gave  his  sister  the  glass — "  that  it  is 
not  a  lady  exercising  a  dog." 

'  Is  there  a  wind,"  she  asked,  looking,  '  down 
there?     Here  the  air's  fainting." 

Guy  looked.  From  the  excursive  figure's  left  hand, 
hanging  close  to  its  side,  a  handkerchief,  held  by  one 
corner,  streamed  out  horizontal  behind  him,  like  a 
blown  pennon.  Guy  took  other  evidence.  "  Not  a 
pine  stirring.  The  breeze  is  his  make.  The  wind 
of  his  haste." 

'  Winds  are  to  the  tempestuous,"  their  father  said 
softly,  remelting  into  their  company.  Sunset  was 
come,  and  sunsets  had  their  dues ;  their  place  in  Turner 
was  safe;  they  were  in  poetry's  peerage;  like  saints 
they  were  calendared ;  no  rude,  startled  act  of  adora- 
tion was  meet,  but  a  liturgy,  something  apt  from  sensi- 
bility's rubric,  a  collect  fitted  to  hour  and  place,  the 
right  choice  among  art's  canonical  forms  of  vespers. 
"  And  now  the  sun  had  stretched  out  all  the  hills  " — 


28  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

he  crooned  it  over  twice,  watching  the  black  spike  of 
shade  thrown  down  on  the  snow  by  each  western  peak ; 
swiftly  each  shadow  lengthened,  its  tip  marching 
down  the  far  side  of  the  valley,  then  lost  for  a  time 
in  the  valley's  black  bottom,  then  sighted  again,  rush- 
ing up  the  slope  on  this  side,  past  where  they  stood, 
to  the  west-facing  snows  overhead.  Higher  and 
higher  up  the  rosy  radiance  was  driven  before  these 
invaders ;  its  rosiness  seemed  to  be  penned  in  and  deep- 
ened as  space  for  it  failed,  as  if  the  same  portion  of 
dye  were  suffusing  a  lessening  ground. 

"And  over  piney  tracts  of  Vaud 
The  rose  of  eve  steals  up  the  snow," 

the  man  of  culture  was  murmuring,  half-absently  fin- 
gering the  words,  like  beads  on  a  rosary. 

Night  involved  the  two  travelers  below.  Far  down 
the  mountain  a  spark  struck  itself,  as  it  seemed,  strug- 
gled and  blinked  for  a  moment,  then  steadied  itself 
and  burned  on,  a  pin-prick  of  light  in  the  wide  pit 
of  blackness.  They  watched  from  the  terrace  for  two 
or  three  minutes,  silent,  till  Guy's  eye  met  June's. 
Each  saw  that  the  other  was  waiting — Guy  lazily 
tickled  and  June  in  torment — until  there  should  come 
from  their  father  the  lines  about  lated  travelers  hasting 
— what  was  it? — to  gain  timely  inns. 

"  It's  chilly.  Do  let  us  go  in,"  she  burst  out,  with 
a  shiver  that  was  of  the  mind  mainly.  Her  father 
returned  to  Pascal  with  a  lingering,  discomforting 
sense  of  dues  not  exhaustively  paid.  Guy  agreed, 
without  hope  of  joy,  to  learn  euchre  from  Newman. 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  20 

June  went  to  her  room  to  write  letters;  doing  that,  she 
could  sometimes  attain  plumbless  depths  of  absorption. 
She  wrote  by  her  window;  she  wondered  at  first  what 
it  meant,  and  how  long  she  had  sat,  when  she  saw 
shafts  of  lantern-light  dashed  this  way  and  that  on 
the  gravel  outside  and  heard  casual  words  in  a  voice 
that  seemed  fresh  as  the  plash  of  a  laugh  in  the  dark 
from  a  boat  coming  home. 


"W 


CHAPTER  III 

"  Murmur  of  living, 
Stir  of  existence, 
Soul  of  the  world  !  " 

Matthew  Arnold. 

E  had  all  been  fairly  original  works  of  crea- 
tion," Guy  wrote  to  a  friend  late  that  evening, 
"  all  during  the  soup  and  up  to  halfway  through  the 
fish  (conceive  it!  They  hoist  fish  up  hither: 
despiciunt  montem  pisccs — guess  how  my  father 
abounded!),  and  then  the  man  Browne  came  in, 
and  lo!  we  were  faded  old  replicas,  prints  from  the 
third  state,  and  not  good  impressions  at  that,  for  here 
was  the  real  proof  etching,  all  edge  and  luster,  sham- 
ing us.  He  goes  about,  liking  things  insanely ;  pitches 
himself  like  an  infant  at  what  amuses  him.  I  can  see 
him  yelling  '  Bags  I ! '  and  annexing  the  Forum  or 
pouching  the  Vatican.  Yet  is  he  modest ;  he  bounds 
not.  June  and  my  father,  poor  Newman  and  I,  all  sat 
and  blinked  while  he  spilt  out,  as  well  as  shyness  would 
let  him,  his  cornucopious  gains  of  travel — a  prize-fight, 
some  new  and  more  earth-shaking  Rodin  at  Paris,  the 
way  they  act  Ibsen  at  Munich,  the  way  they  make  cider 
near  Caen — he  gets  drunk  on  the  difference  between  it 
and  how  they  make  cider  in  Devonshire.  Quite  a 
sound  type,  you  know,  only  a  little  cyclonic  for  us  quiet 
people.     To-morrow,  at  earliest  cock-crow,  or  sooner, 

30 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  31 

he  whirls  me  up  some  sky-impaling  mountain  behind 
the  premises.  In  very  truth,  sir,  I  had  as  lief  be 
hanged,  sir,  as  go,  but  June  has  an  impulse  to  rush  out 
and  do  something  violent ;  also,  the  deuce  knows  why, 
one  feels  that  one  would  be  out  of  the  proper  main 
stream  if  one  stayed — the  same  notion,  no  doubt,  that 
makes  the  dust  follow  motors.  I  had  it,  that  Sunday 
he  tore  you  and  me  from  our  beds,  our  altars,  our 
simple,  devout  student  life,  to  toil  up  the  river  all 
day." 

That  day  on  the  Oxford  river  had  come  up  at  din- 
ner— an  obvious  topic  for  people  with  few  common 
memories.  Guv  had  begun  it.  Did  Browne  still  se- 
duce the  devout — "  '  little  ones  which  believe,'  like 
me" — from  prayers  on  Sundays?  Or  had  he  learnt 
better?     Had  he  ordered  his  millstone? 

June  shivered.  Guy's  jets  of  chaff  could  not  hurt 
those  they  were  aimed  at;  his  spirit  had  no  drop  of 
vitriol  in  its  aspersions;  but  why  not  take  care  what 
he  splashed  by  the  way?  In  churches  in  Italy  June 
had  not  cared  to  see  children  gambol  with  dogs  on  the 
steps  of  altars.     It  was  uncivil. 

Browne's  eye  caught  her  overstrained  frown  at  the 
venial  ribaldry.  He  was  surprised,  and  in  that  sur- 
prise came  the  first  clear  impression  he  had  of  her, 
body  and  mind — a  Flora  sitting  in  judgment,  Hebe 
turned  Grand  Inquisitor,  a  Rhadamanthine  rose. 

"  The  sin  would  have  been  not  to  go,"  Browne  re- 
plied, and  unintendingly  made  Mr.  Hathersage  easy; 
it  gave  him  a  cue;  he  could  turn  from  Browne's  and 
Guy's  to  another  going-a-Maying,  more  classic: 


32  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

"  '  Nay!  not  so  much  as  out  of  bed? 
When  all  the  birds  have  matins  said, 
And  sung  their  thankful  prayers:  Tis  sin, 
Nay,  profanation  to  keep  in.' " 

He  hummed  the  words  lingeringly;  so  a  bee  hums 
and  hovers  before  folding  wings  on  the  one  flower 
that  she  was  looking  for. 

Browne  sucked  in  the  sound  of  the  lines ;  they  were 
new  to  him.  "  That  was  just  it,  sir,"  he  said.  The 
lines  seemed  to  work  on  him;  he  set  off  eagerly,  bun- 
glingly,  trying  to  tell  how  he  had  waked  that  day 
early,  to  streets  shining  and  silent,  the  first  shadows 
reaching  to  all  lengths  about  them,  in  unfamiliar  direc- 
tions. His  talk  had  no  gloss  or  run,  like  a  Hather- 
sage's;  more  like  the  babbling  of  some  one  still  in  a 
marvel's  presence,  interjecting  broken  surprise  and 
delight. 

It  was  crude ;  it  was  like  some  undressing  begun 
in  public ;  it  might  go  to  all  lengths.  June  felt  her 
face  tingle  with  shame,  as  one  does,  in  one's  safety,  for 
some  rash  taker  of  foolish  odds.  Oh,  to  have  this 
man  away  and  to  make  Guy  tell  her  it  all.  For  Guy 
had  been  there ;  how  Guy  must  have  kindled !  Guy 
had  felt  that  auroral  freshness  and  wonder ;  only  some 
overflow  from  secret  raptures  of  Guy's  could  have 
animated  this  alien. 

Guy,  seeing  some  one  begin  to  abound  in  a  vein, 
drew  him  on.  They  strung  reminiscences — Godstow 
at  eight  in  the  morning,  mists  on  the  move,  the  mead- 
ows still  littered  with  diamonds;  and  breakfast  there, 
on  pink  trout,  by  the  door  of  the  inn. 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  33 

"  We  as  pink  as  the  trout,"  put  in  Guy,  "  from  that 
swim  at  the  weir.     My  teeth  chatter  to  think  of  it." 

June  looked  at  Guy  still;  she  was  glad  of  his  lithe- 
ness  and  full  eyes,  their  mild  brown  enisled  in  clear 
bluish  white;  no  teeth  were  so  white  as  his,  either; 
she  saw  his  lips  set  for  the  dive,  and  how  they  would 
rise  laughing  after  it,  out  of  the  lasher's  race.  And 
Guy  could  dissemble  that  ecstasy !  '  Then,  above 
Godstow?  "  she  asked.  "  Do  go  on,"  she  added  impa- 
tiently. 

"  Oh.  you  tow  miles  and  miles,"  Browne  went  on, 
"  with  your  head  among  the  larks  and  your  naked  toes 
feeling  cowslips."  He  fumbled  for  some  word,  then 
stumbled  along.  "  The  grass  is  in  varnish — you  know 
the  look  ?  Deep  grass — the  trees  wade  in  it  deeper 
each  Sunday." 

Many  bathes,  jocund  meals,  pipes  in  Elysium — the 
girl  grew  aware  of  them,  found  them  all  good,  of  a 
goodness  not  physical  only,  but  poignant  with  some 
fleeting  and  flower-like  grace  of  young  delight. 
Lamely  Browne  told  the  day  out — how  the  evening 
was  happy  years  long;  "  the  sun  found  the  right  place 
in  the  sky,  and  stayed  there  ";  then  home  in  the  warm 
dark,  at  rest  on  the  rhythm  of  the  oars.  June  held 
her  breath,  fearing  for  Guy,  lest  some  stupid  man  in 
the  boat — this  Mr.  Browne,  perhaps — should  speak 
and  drown  the  note  of  one  drip  from  a  blade  on  the 
feather ;  each  note  fell  round  and  cool  and  lay  whole 
like  a  pearl  on  the  cushion  of  silent  night. 

The  talk,  when  June  took  it  in  next,  was  of  pictures 
— or    books,    was    it? — talk,    on    her    father's    and 


34.  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

brother's  side,  modern,  equipped,  lightly  glancing; 
only,  not  eager.  They  mooned  in  the  van  of  all  the  arts, 
rode  at  will  with  the  head  of  each  column  and  pitied 
its  hopes  and  were  kind  to  its  middlingness;  nothing 
was  left  remarkable  under  their  visiting  eyes;  and  yet 
they  kept  on,  they  marched  over  the  waste,  urged  by 
some  habit  of  well-bred  forbearance  blent  with  some 
unspent  instinct  of  caste  captaincy.  And  they  had 
solaces,  privacies,  tiny  reserves  of  less  deep  disap- 
pointment with  somebody's  work,  here  and  there,  that 
had  not  been  smirched  with  a  fame  too  vulgar ;  failing 
others,  you  had  Leopardi  to  read;  Shakespeare,  al- 
though he  wrote  much  else,  had  written  the  better  of 
the  Sonnets;  and  there  were  the  pictures  of  Maris, 
"  the  Maris  that  counts,"  the  right  one  of  the  three. 

Browne  had  waved  an  audacious  flag  and  wras  now 
looking  shamefaced,  as  youth  does  when  wisdom  re- 
ceives its  flags  and  clarion  blasts  with  bland  lassitude. 
June,  with  a  twinge  of  compassion  for  culture  so  half- 
baked,  had  heard  him  throw  out  the  raw  notion  that 
now  was  the  time  to  be  living  in :  painting,  sculpture, 
the  novel,  the  play — in  every  garden  the  roses,  the 
perfected  roses,  the  pick,  were,  perhaps,  only  just 
bursting;  the  day  of  days  might  be  at  hand  and  we, 
the  lucky  men  in  the  lottery,  lucky  beyond  Pericleans, 
Augustans,  Elizabethans,  we  might  have  drawn  the 
great  hour  of  all — high  noon,  high  tide,  high  midsum- 
mer. He  tumbled  it  out  like  that,  garishly.  So  there 
followed  a  pause  soft  and  deep,  a  bed  of  feathers  and 
sand  held  out  for  the  arrow,  so  witlessly  loosed,  to 
sink  into  harmlessly. 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  35 

June  felt  with  her  kindred ;  but  also  she  now  saw 
their  mood  as  if  from  without.  It  was  like  a  dispirited 
god's,  sad-eyed  and  clement,  bearing  with  mankind 
after  a  Fall ;  the  world  was  like  some  storied  place 
whose  story  was  forfeited ;  it  was  to  them  a  Stratford 
that  Shakespeare  had  never  been  near;  a  Westminster 
Abbey  detected  as  modern  and,  if  you  looked  into  it, 
smart  in  design,  nothing  more.  Essentiality  was 
gone.     The  trees  had  no  hamadryads,  poor  things. 

In  mercy  to  Browne's  raw  gawkishness  Guy  led  the 
way  round  to  themes  that  might — it  was  to  be  hoped — 
let  a  mountaineer  shine,  if  to  shine  were  in  him.  Mr. 
Hathersage  helped ;  he  cited  distinguished  eulogists  of 
the  open  air,  the  life  in  the  sun,  of  "  enduring  hard- 
ness," a  fashion  raging  just  then  among  imitant  minds. 
Had  Browne  read  Nature's  last  confidant?  Some  one 
was  named  who  had  railed  or  pouted  readably  at  roofs 
and  the  tablecloth.     Browne  seemed  to  be  at  a  loss. 

"  The  man  with  a  style,"  Guy  explained,  '  and  a 
cough,  who  was  out  two  whole  nights — you  remem- 
ber? He  drove  his  pyjamas,  piled  on  an  ass,  from  a 
sleeping-place  under  a  bank  of  wild  roses  to  one  to 
leeward  of  a  clump  of  honeysuckles.  You  smile? 
You  alarm  me.  Is  it  not  all  moral  beauty,  as  well  as 
dog-roses?  " 

Browne  laughed.  "  When  I  was  a  boy,  and  slept 
out,  up  the  river,  it  used  to  be  shirking  one's  tooth- 
brush." 

"  '  Now  I  know,'  '  Mr.  Hathersage  crooned,  having 
found  what  he  sought,  "  '  the  secret  of  the  making  of 
the  best  people.     It  is  to  live  in  the  open  air  and  to  eat 


36  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

and  sleep  with  the  earth."  He  fancied  he  thought 
so,  but  few  men  would  more  surely  and  swiftly  come 
in  when  it  rained. 

Browne  launched  off  again,  with  his  usual  effort  at 
starting.  '  It's  very  nice  of  the  bards  and  sages,  sir; 
only  mayn't  they  change  hares  next  moment  and  go 
whooping  off  on  some  other  line — perhaps  saying,  this 
time,  that  the  true  virile  game  is  to  stand  up  to  soot 
and  germs  in  East  Ends  and  Black  Countries  and — ? 
Why — "  Not  alone  that  which  goeth  into  the 
mouth  intoxicateth  a  man.  Browne  looked  round  the 
table  exaltedly,  caught  at  the  first  eye  that  he  lit  on, 
which  chanced  to  be  Newman's,  and  rushed  ahead : 
'  Why,  Newman,  haven't  there  been  in  our  time  three 
immense  revolutions  in  collars,  and — ?  " 

He  meant  no  harm.  For  all  that  he  noticed,  New- 
man might  have  been  wearing  no  collar  at  all.  But  he 
was.  And  in  these  matters  of  fashion  Newman  not 
only  followed  the  chase,  but  would  sometimes  ride 
over  the  hounds;  even  now  he  was  wearing  a  collar 
that  might  in  three  months  be  a  stroke  of  conformity 
more  consummately  timed  than  to-day.  So  his  heart 
told  him ;  and,  having  insolences  of  his  own  to  let  off 
on  occasion,  he  thought  he  spied  one  in  this  unwitting 
blunderer. 

Mr.  Hathersage  saw  how  the  coltish  ears  had  flicked 
back;  he  hurried  to  make  a  diversion  with  more  book- 
ish stuff  about  life  far  from  books.  Why  not  "go 
back  to  Nature  "? — that  was  the  gist  of  it. 

Browne,  flushed  and  with  eyes  alight,  caught  the 
thrown  ball.     "Back,   sir?     How   far,   though?     To 


THE  MORNINGS  WAR  37 

tents  and  no  meat  from  the  butcher?     Why  stop  at 
that?     Why  not  beech-mast  and  acorns?' 

"  Go  the  whole  hog,  as  they  say?  "  Mr.  Hathersage 
purred. 

"  Oh,  doesn't  our  elderly  friend,  or  aunt,  Common 
Sense — ?"  Guy  murmured,  to  lubricate  speech  in 
Browne. 

Browne  turned  to  Guy,  joyously  free ;  one  could  not 
quite  rally  the  graybeard.  "  Common  Sense  comes 
me  cranking  in? — yes.  And  then  we  bolt  back  to  our 
dear  old  complexities?  Last  month  a  little  book 
came  out;  I  got  it;  a  kind  of  tramp's  manual;  amateur 
tramp,  of  course,  with  a  check-book  about  him,  done 
up  in  oiled  silk.  All  chapter  one  was  a  lyric — joy  of 
living;  over-safety  of  this  effete  age;  out  upon  offices, 
dining  out,  Consols,  fixed  hours,  libraries? — so  on,  ad 
lib,  till  page  forty.  From  there  to  the  end  it  was  all 
how  to  rig  up  some  wonderful  tent,  and  to  steam  fish 
and  brew  a  quite  ineffable  punch,  and  buy  the  most 
magical  frying-pans,  sleeping-bags,  spirit-stoves — as  if 
poor,  passionate  man,  when  he'd  once  got  a  spirit- 
stove,  ever  could  stop  on  this  side  of  a  big,  shiny 
kitchen-range,  tying  his  soul  to  the  earth.  Oh,  I  beg 
pardon — "  He  turned  with  a  start  to  the  lady. 
He  thought  she  had  made  a  sound. 

She  only  said,  "  Please  go  on."  But  he  was  grav- 
eled, aghast;  he  had  let  himself  go,  in  the  first  words 
that  came — stupid  ones,  doubtless.  Besides,  on  what 
toes  might  he  not  have  come  down ! 

June  did  not  like  him;  he  was  unrestful  to  do  with; 
he  trumpeted;   he   was  incalculable,   though  naif;   to 


38  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

have  him  ahout  was  like  taking  a  walk  in  the  park  with 
some  one  who  might  at  any  time  leap  upon  one  of  the 
green  chairs  and  preach,  at  the  top  of  a  childlike  voice, 
some  outlandish  doctrine,  and  make  your  face  hot  for 
him.  Nor  had  he  a  physical  right  to  be  like  that  in 
mind.  He  was  not  built  for  a  crank.  In  body  and 
face  he  was  mere  standard  youth,  with  that  clean  blue- 
ness  of  eye  and  whiteness  of  tooth  and  puissancy  of 
neck  and  wrist,  ripe  brown  with  stored  sunshine.  He 
ought  to  be  merely  commonplace-minded,  like  other 
young  British  Apollos,  running  fountains  of  stock 
banalities,  desolators  of  garden-parties  in  Surrey ;  then 
she  could  contemn  him  at  ease.  As  it  was,  he  was  an 
irritant.  But  she  had  breeding  and  a  quick  mercy  for 
the  abashed.  She  would  set  on  his  feet  the  floored 
dancer  of  galliards.  'Why  rough  it  at  all,  then?' 
she  asked,  encouraging. 

Browne  looked  round  the  table  for  help.  Would  no 
one  explain?  They  must  all  know  how,  better  than 
he.  No  one  spoke.  He  had  the  lead  and  must  keep 
it,  and  fluency,  like  a  summer-dried  fountain,  had 
failed  when  the  need  was  sorest.  "  Do  you  think," 
he  said  limply,  "  one  does  it  to  get  at  the  feel  of — well, 
of  not  roughing  it?  " 

'By  contrast?'  June's  questioning  look  offered 
help. 

'  Well,  by  coming  at  it  from  behind,  as  it  were — 
from  the  time  before  comfort  was  yet  thought  of.  I 
found  out  one  night  " — the  spasmodic  flow  quickened 
a  little — "  the  rare  good  invention  a  pillow  is.  We'd 
been    caught    on    the    Weisshorn,    Louis — my    guide 


THE  MORNINGS  WAR  39 

here — and  I.  The  first  half  of  the  night  I  lay 
flat  on  a  rock.  Then  I  had  a  great  notion  and  rested 
my  head  on  a  rucksack  with  bottles,  a  loaf  and  a  great 
pair  of  boots  in  it.     It  was  divine!  " 

"  Voluptuary!  "  Guy  breathed. 

"  Yes,"  said  Browne,  eagerly ;  "  simply." 

"  And  I  had  thought  you  Antseus,"  Guy  softly  chid, 
"  coming  to  your  mother  for  a  kiss!  " 

"  Kiss  ?  Dear  old  tigress !  The  sport  is  to  feel 
your  head's  outside  her  mouth;  and  you  can't  if  you 
won't  pop  it  in,  just  an  inch  or  so.  Try.  Come  up 
the  Dent  Rouge  to-morrow  with  Louis  and  me." 

"  Eh — ?  "  Guy  ruefully  scanned  the  proffered  ad- 
venture. June  fixed  amazed  eyes  on  him.  Could  he 
decline  it?  No,  he  could  not;  but  a  debility  in  him, 
not  a  fervor,  accepted.  See  a  pith  ball  feebly  dance 
at  the  call  of  a  piece  of  electrified  glass — Guy  was  like 
that,  half  animated  by  any  impulse  that  fired  those 
who  were  nearest  him.  Gales  that  blew  in  their  spirits 
would  set  faint  draughts  stirring  in  his,  light  airs  with 
just  enough  motion  to  keep  the  miniature  sails  of  his 
will  perceptibly  flapping  until  he  drifted  rather  than 
steered  across  some  new  starting-line,  not  of  his  own 
choosing.  And  meanwhile  the  idle  and  curious  eye  of 
his  mind  was  full  of  cool  light;  with  amusement  it 
watched  what  he  did,  just  as  it  took  in  traits  in  others, 
virtues  or  failings,  not  wishing  them  anything  else; 
were  they  not  parts  of  the  scenery?  'I  am  the 
clay,"  he  said  suavely  to  Browne,  "  thou  art  the 
potter." 

June  had  longed  for  his  voice  to  come  soon  and  be 


40  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

ardent.  When  it  came,  lifelessly  bland,  she  felt  she 
had  to  give  up  a  hope  and  lose  a  memory.  This,  then, 
was  how  Guy  had  gone  up  that  magical  and  sacred 
river,  a  pressed  man  suffering  Eden;  his  banter  was 
not  a  mere  veil;  it  was  all  of  him.  Dinner  was  over; 
she  rose  bewildered  with  that  effacement  of  an  imag- 
ined brother.  Yet  all  was  not  loss;  she,  if  not  he,  had 
just  lived  with  a  will  that  old  day  of  his,  a  day  unlike 
any  that  came  now;  it  shone  with  a  glamoursome 
goodness  of  light,  like  some  lustrous  single  days  re- 
membered since  childhood  or  seen  in  stories  told  her  of 
Ireland  by  her  own  Irish  mother,  three  years  dead. 

At  a  door  leading  straight  to  the  terrace  they  passed 
from  the  dining-room's  heat  into  a  night  fresh  as  a 
bath ;  in  it  their  voices  splashed  coolly.  No  wind  blew, 
but  June  felt  the  air  all  astir  as  a  brimming  river  is, 
at  high  tide,  when  it  does  not  flow  nor  ebb,  and  yet 
moves,  fingering  its  banks  and  arranging  its  waters: 
space  was  a  vessel  filled;  it  held  something  that  groped 
and  strove  to  be  felt ;  and  some  sense  in  June  strained 
to  take  up  the  challenge;  it  craned,  it  shook  itself  out, 
a  floating  film  of  absorbency,  on  the  charged  air.  Al- 
most— it  seemed — overhead,  that  north-east  ridge  of 
the  Dent  Rouge,  the  one  by  which  Guy  was  to  go,  sped 
up  through  the  snows  to  the  region  where  stars  in  the 
high  frost  winked  and  flashed;  they  seemed  to  have  life 
and  intention,  such  pulse  had  their  fierce  sparks,  and 
now  and  then  one  would  dart  to  earth  slantwise,  or  fall 
headlong  as  Lucifer  from  the  dome's  roof.  Behind 
the  inn  a  wood  fire  was  burning ;  sparks  flying  up  from 
it  met  those  others  and  crossed  them. 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  41 


a  i 


Angels  of  God,  ascending  and  descending.' 
Browne's  voice,  not  far  from  her,  made  a  note  of 
their  look,  for  himself,  but  what  he  said  fitted  her  feel- 
ing, and  carried  it  on,  a  feeling  as  if  in  this  heaving 
darkness  some  world-transforming  whisper  were  steal- 
ing close  up  to  the  line  across  which  new  sounds  slip 
into  hearing.  How  not  to  miss  it?  What  if  the 
chance  should  go  by,  like  a  passing  ship's  rope  acci- 
dentally trailed,  brushing  the  face  of  one  drowning 
unnoticed?  Panic  beset  her;  she  saw  the  ridge  spring 
like  a  new  Jacob's  ladder  into  a  sky  strangely  opened. 

"  Guy " — she  spoke  low,  drawing  close  to  her 
brother — "  let  me  come." 

"To-morrow?     Up  that  unspeakable  gradient?'1 

"  Let  me  come  with  you,"  she  said  entreatingly. 

"With  me?  Say  instead  of  me.  June,  my  poor 
lamb,  could  you  take  Isaac's  place  on  the  altar  ?': 

She  stamped  to  hear  his  voice  rippling  along,  tri- 
fling. "  You  know  I  can't  go  with  these  strange  men, 
alone.     And  I  must  go." 

Guy's  shrug  came  out  well  in  the  starlight,  as  main 
architectural  outlines  do. 

"  '  Some  hae  meat  and  winna  eat, 
And  some  hae  nane,  that  want  it.'  " 

He  sighed  the  words  mildly  and  then  spoke  of  many 
things  needed  by  climbers  which  she  had  not  got — an 
ice-ax,  snow-spectacles,  great  nails,  so  on. 

She  countered  each  point  quickly.  Axes? — a  sheaf 
of  them  stood  for  sale  in  the  hall;  blue  spectacles  too; 


42  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

in  the  open  wood-shed,  at  that  very  moment,  the 
porter  was  hanging  new  nails  by  candle-light  into  a 
boot. 

But  the  one  guide,  Guy  feared,  would  not  do  for 
the  three  of  them.  That  checked  her,  an  instant,  but 
"  You  must  consult  Mr.  Browne,"  she  doggedly  said, 
not  yet  yielding. 

Joy !  Mr.  Browne  pooh-poohed  the  objection. 
Why,  he  was — well,  no,  not  a  guide,  but  quite  a  porter; 
he  had  the  experience,  though  not  the  diploma.  Be- 
sides, the  banger  of  nails  in  the  wood-shed  had  both ; 
they  would  take  him ;  Madame  could  well  spare  him, 
now. 

"  Oh,  thank  you!  "  June  cried  in  a  tone  too  elate — 
so  it  sounded  to  her ;  it  gave  her  a  twinge  of  shamed 
pride ;  why  bare  even  the  least  space  of  her  soul's 
surface  to  any  stranger? 

"  What  hour  to  start  ?  "  Guy  asked  Browne  re- 
signedly. 

"  No  hurry.  Three'll  do.  We  can't  very  well 
climb  the  ridge  itself  before  daylight,  and  that's  not 
till  five,  and  it's  only  two  hours'  walk  to  the  foot.  If 
they'll  call  us  at  two — " 

Guy  went  to  give  orders.  Browne  and  June  were 
alone.  "  How  safe  one's  face  feels  in  the  dark!  "  he 
said,  quite  simply,  after  a  moment.  The  words 
seemed  to  fall  on  that  bare  place  in  her  and  cover  it,  as 
the  naked  are  clothed  in  the  innocence  of  others.  He, 
too,  she  was  somehow  aware,  had  winced,  perhaps 
flushed,  with  a  sense  of  the  twinge  that  had  crossed 
her,  and  then  had  been  glad  that  no  one  could  see  him 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  43 

wince,  and  now  let  it  out  unwittingly,  like  a  child  for 
whom,  in  some  abashed  moment,  to  go  into  the  dark 
is  to  go  into  ease,  and  avow  it.  June  wondered.  Ex- 
cept in  a  child  she  had  never  seen  the  penetrative  kind 
of  simplicity. 


CHAPTER  IV 

"  Nur  wo  du  bist  sei  alles,  immer  kindlich, 
So  bist  du  alles,  bist  uniiberwindlich." 

Goethe. 
Rough  English  Translation 
"  Except  ye  be  converted,  and  become  as  little  children,  ye 
shall  not  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven." 

AT  five  the  guide  halted  to  blow  out  the  lantern; 
dawn  was  an  hour  off  yet,  but  the  sky  had 
turned  violet,  blenching  down  eastwards  into  a  thin 
and  cold  blue,  astringently  sharp  like  the  blue  of 
skimmed  milk.  Due  east  the  longish  crest  of  Mont 
Bouquetin,  seen  across  a  wide  glacier,  bit  its  black  edge 
into  this  paleness. 

Above  the  five  climbers'  heads  there  rose  the  ridge 
of  their  hopes;  first  a  snow  slope,  steep  and  a  little 
concave ;  its  profile  rushed  up  in  one  soar,  like  the  line 
of  light  swept  by  a  rocket ;  above  it  the  ridge  seemed 
to  be  of  dark  rock,  its  shape  indistinct;  yet  higher,  and 
also  lighter  in  color  and  so  lifting  spectrally  out  of  the 
twilight,  the  ridge  rose  as  a  twisted  stake  fence  of  wild 
pinnacles;  one  or  two  failing  stars  blinked  feebly 
among  them,  yet  still  the  ridge  soared  on  and  lost 
itself  up  there.  It  looked  endless  to  June,  it  felt  end- 
less to  Guy,  as  the  five,  roped  in  file,  kicked  steps  for 
themselves  up  the  rustling  snow  slope  for  an  hour, 
and  then  scrambled   on   up  the  tumbled  dark   rocks 

44 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  45 

above,  Guy  at  times  on  all  fours  and  asking  himself, 
without  indignation,  why  he  was  there. 

They  found  a  good  flat  place  and  breakfasted. 
While  they  ate  dawn  came,  dewless  and  birdless,  with 
no  pretty  ways;  a  last  star  went  out  and  then  an  un- 
dazzling  orb,  its  rim  studded  with  short  darts  of  light, 
drew  clear  of  the  earth  with  even,  purposeful  speed. 
Guy  eyed  it.  "  A  somewhat  bald  pageant,"  he  said 
in  a  measured  tone,  like  one  eschewing  severity. 

Browne  chuckled.  '  The  classical  style,  I  sup- 
pose." 

"  No,  no.  The  romantic,"  June  cried,  and  then 
stopped,  clutched  by  self-criticism.  Rubbish!  What 
rubbish!  Stock  raptures  of  female  effusiveness. 
Then,  as  suddenly,  came  an  impulse  of  salvage,  to  try 
to  lift  into  truth  the  word  let  fall  by  rote.  '  Isn't 
'romantic'  what's  splendid  and  strange?  And  just 
listen." 

Far  down,  in  the  glacier  that  curved  round  the  foot 
of  their  ridge,  the  straining  ice  creaked ;  then  it  re- 
settled. They  heard  it  out,  silently.  Stillness  re- 
froze  itself  round  them;  all  the  air  seemed  a  palace  of 
stillness,  with  only  infinitesimal  winds  stealing  about 
its  vacuous  chambers.  June  heard,  in  her  resting 
body,  some  pulse  or  breath  that  the  climb  had  fluttered ; 
it  rustled — a  sound  like  crushed  feathers;  it  seemed 
as  if  the  others  must  hear,  but  they  heard  their  own. 

Browne  looked  at  her  friendlily,  curiously.  "  I 
meant  the  sun,"  he  explained — "  the  big,  bare  way 
that  he  has  with  him — '  not  trick't  or  flounc'd,'  you 
know,  like — " 


46  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

"  Like  our  poor  Surrey  daybreaks?  ': 

"  Ones  that  are  all  wet  eyelash  and  twittering  lawn? 
No.     Surrey  hasn't  the  trick." 

"  Trick  ?  "  she  asked,  rather  august,  as  she  always 
grew  when  she  felt  at  a  loss. 

He  was  confounded.  "  Her  own  trick — oh,  yes. 
I  only  meant — not  the  classical  one." 

"What's  that?"  she  asked,  more  clemently. 

Still,  a  prostrating  demand.  "  The  classical 
dodge?"  He  got  the  question  confirmed,  to  gain 
time. 

"  Yes."     She  was  waiting. 

He  had  to  plunge.  "  Isn't  it— well,  is  it  this— for 
the  sun,  or  the  earth,  or  whatever  it  is,  to  be  just  its 
bare  self  and  yet  take  your  breath  away — like  the  old 
boys  who  could  say  in  their  poems  that  somebody  died, 
or  cried,  and  lo !  it's  tragic?" 

He  inwardly  groaned  at  himself;  was  that  all  he 
could  say,  out  of  all  that  he  meant?  But  in  this  air, 
at  this  hour,  ideas  could  pass  and  repass;  it  was  a  con- 
ductor. Besides — though  he  could  not  know  this — his 
voice  had  self-attesting  tones,  in  a  word  here  and 
there,  of  a  zestful  veracity,  turns  and  returns  of  the 
hound,  nose  to  ground,  caring  about  the  scent  only. 
June  thought.  So  the  sun,  the  mere  sun,  was  all  that 
to  some  people.  And,  strangely,  a  breath  of  that 
gusto  invaded  her,  some  stir  of  the  troubled  delight  of 
sense  put  forth  on  things  primal  and  vast,  like  the  be- 
ginning of  worlds. 

She  came  out  of  reverie  shivering.  Time  to  go  on : 
that    was    clear.     And    now,    without    slighting   the 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  47 

recreations  of  others,  Guy  made  it  known  that  his  mind 
was  enriched  with  this  sport  to  the  height  of  its  needs, 
and  that  "  brother  body  "  craved  ease.  At  eve,  dewy 
eve,  he  would  freely  accept  any  impressions  the  others 
might  bring  back  of  the  summit.  June  looked  piteous 
at  this,  and  he  made  haste  to  add  that,  of  course,  he 
would  go  down  alone;  the  rest  must  go  on.  When 
June's  eyes  signaled  a  refusal  of  this  composition 
Guy's  brightened  with  silent,  confidential  laughter  at 
bourgeois  prudishness,  escorts,  chaperons;  they  were 
vieux  feu,  his  looks  said;  they  were  not  for  the  clean 
of  to-day.  That  moved  her,  and  then  he  said  the 
slighter  things  that  could  be  said ;  unless  she  went  on 
he  would  go  on  and  perish  and  leave  his  bones  whiten- 
ing, the  ridge  being  no  place  for  their  transport.  So 
it  was  settled,  except  that  the  porter  must  go 
back  with  Guy;  the  glacier  below  was  not  for  lone 
walkers. 

While  Louis  repacked  broken  victuals,  Browne  and 
June  silently  watched  the  two  others  diminishing  down 
the  snow  ridge.  June  turned  at  a  sound ;  it  was  Louis, 
pawing  the  ground,  athirst  for  the  enemy.  , 

The  guide  advanced,  first  on  the  rope,  the  girl 
second.  That  rope  can  do  wonders ;  currents  of  gay 
comradeship  spark  along  it ;  sulks  and  reserves  it  con- 
ducts harmlessly  into  the  earth.  Browne  nodded  to- 
wards Louis  as  June  was  starting,  her  ten  yards  behind 
him.  "  He'll  sing  in  a  moment,"  Browne  whispered, 
smiling. 

She  too  was  merry,  at  ease,  a  surprise  to  herself. 
"  The    band    plays    the    corps     into    action  ?     Dear 


48  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

Louis ! '  The  three  might  have  climbed  together  for 
weeks,  they  were  such  friends.  And,  surely  enough, 
the  lyric  impulse  was  soon  uncontainable. 

"  Montagnes  d'Evolene, 
Vous  etes  mes  amours; 
Cabanes  fortunees 
Ou  j'ai  regu  le  jour," 

Louis  trolled  till  breath  failed.  It  did  soon.  For  the 
ridge  changed.  So  far  it  had  been  a  fair  causeway, 
narrow  enough  but,  from  left  edge  to  right,  pretty 
level,  a  gangway-plank  running  up  steep  but  true. 
Now  it  was  taking  a  list  to  the  left;  the  gangway's 
left  edge  had  somehow  dipped  down;  to  go  on  they 
would  first  have  to  crawl  up  the  slant  to  the  higher 
right  edge  of  the  plank,  so  to  speak,  and  then  work 
up  that  as  they  might. 

Louis  diffused  himself  over  the  slabby  slant,  gur- 
gling with  joy  like  a  fish-fed  cat,  made  nondescript 
movements,  and  in  a  few  seconds  sat  puffing  and  crow- 
ing astride  of  the  sharp  upper  edge.  June  followed. 
Arrived,  she  looked  over  the  edge.  It  had  no  other 
side  to  be  seen;  the  crest  that  she  clung  upon  beetled 
out  over  a  void,  like  an  eave;  all  was  cut  away  under 
it.  Holding  on  with  one  hand  and  her  knees,  June 
searched  about,  scraped  a  stone  out  of  a  cleft  and 
dropped  it  over.  It  fell  clear  through  air  for  two  hun- 
dred feet,  then  struck  a  wall  of  hard  snow  and  spun 
along  down  it,  making  a  faint,  distant  hiss. 

"  Good — isn't  it?"  Browne,  who  had  scrambled  up 
after  her,  panted  out,  breathless  with  haste  and  rap- 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  49 

ture.  The  gaze  of  both  followed  the  stone  where  it 
still  spun  or  slid  or  leapt  on,  now  out  of  hearing,  two 
thousand  good  feet  down  the  wall,  until  at  the  top  of 
its  speed  it  was  fielded  extinguishingly  by  a  waiting 
crevasse,  a  shark's  slit  of  a  mouth  with  soft  lips  of 
snow  curved  over  parted  ice  teeth.  At  each  hazard  of 
its  descent  Browne  had  made  tiny  noises  uncon- 
sciously, little  grunts  of  happy  absorption,  holdings  of 
breath  as  the  stone  neared  a  rock  or  a  hole,  releases  of 
breath  when  it  cleared  them,  almost  a  sigh  when  the 
run  ended.  June  heard  these  sounds  while  watching 
the  stone ;  or  rather — absurd,  but  it  seemed  so — hear- 
ing them  was  watching  the  stone  more  absorbedly 
than  she  had  known  that  she  could  watch  any- 
thing. 

Attention  relaxed,  they  looked  up  and  she  saw  in 
his  face  a  glee  new  to  her ;  yet  she  knew  it ;  she  felt  it 
rise  in  her  too — the  glee  of  a  safety  no  longer  unfelt 
or  tasteless,  like  safety  down  there  in  the  valley;  now 
it  was  made  salt  to  the  sense ;  it  was  prized  because 
worked  for;  it  glowed,  a  triumph  for  all  the  taut 
muscles;  it  stood  in  relief,  cut  out  on  a  beautiful  back- 
ground of  risk;  it  was  saved  from  being  a  matter  of 
course,  taken  for  granted.  She  felt  her  world  widen- 
ing again;  there  were  some,  then,  to  whom  such  joys 
were  not  fortuitous  flashes ;  they  knew  where  to  come 
for  them.  What  might  one  not  know? — how  to  use 
them,  perhaps,  as  avenues  up  to  yet  other  heights  of 
strange  delight  that  no  one  had  told  her  of. 

"  It  is  best,"  Louis  said,  with  Greek  moderation, 
"  not  to  slip  here." 


50  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

Overhead  the  ridge  was  a  file  of  shattered  towers: 
it  mounted  wavering;  now  four  or  five  of  these  towers, 
one  after  another,  would  shoot  straight  up  at  the  sky; 
then  some  blast  from  the  south  would  seem  to  have 
caught  a  whole  troop  of  them — all  their  tips  swayed 
to  the  north;  like  a  row  of  blown  flames  they  bent  out 
over  space ;  and  then  the  blown  look  would  pass  and  a 
fifty-foot  splinter  of  straight  stone  would  shoot  up 
again.  The  party  had  been  working  into  the  north 
while  the  sun  had  rounded  towards  south ;  now  they 
were  in  their  mountain's  own  shadow,  but  far  above 
them  the  staggering  column  of  stone  stakes  emerged 
into  sunlight ;  the  topmost  turrets  had  rest  and  basked 
pensively.  June  looked  at  these.  "  How  they  muse !  " 
she  said  aloud,  though  to  herself. 

(  Yes."  Browne  for  a  moment  considered  her.  No, 
it  was  not  gush ;  she  saw  things,  this  girl ;  in  a  town 
she  would  know  how  high  towers  dream  in  hazes  of 
luminous  dust,  over  unrest  ful  streets.  He  considered 
her. 

Round  or  else  over  each  of  those  sentinel  spires  the 
climbers  must  go.  Soon  Louis  was  scaling  the  first; 
from  twenty  feet  up  an  obelisk,  thirty  feet  high,  his 
boot  nails  gleamed  over  the  heads  of  the  others.  His 
toes  ground  off  the  rock  a  small  hail  of  granules  of 
crushed  ice  that  pattered  on  hats  below  and  bit  the 
warm  flesh  at  a  sleeve.  Soon  it  was  June's  turn. 
How  easy  it  was — just  to  let  fall  away,  like  a  cloak 
from  the  body,  an  incapacity  put  on — when  could  it 
have  been  that  she  put  it  on  ?  It  was  no  part  of  her. 
Merely  to  live  with  a  will  in  the  reach  of  an  arm  up  to 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  51 

grasp  a  stone  knob  overhead,  holding  her  breath,  with 
a  child's  gleeful  cunning,  to  keep  her  chest  close  to  the 
rock  while  she  did  it.     That  was  all. 

From  the  top  she  watched  Browne  coming  up.  He 
moved  with  bold  care;  each  hold  that  he  used  was 
tested  with  rigor,  but,  once  tried,  was  utterly  trusted, 
and  grasp  passed  into  grasp  to  make  one  continuous, 
sinuous,  act  of  adhesion,  the  whole  body  working  to- 
gether in  movements  that  sent  rippling  folds  down  the 
back  of  his  coat  as  the  ordered  power  ran  wave-like 
along  the  muscles  below. 

From  the  obelisk's  tip  they  dropped  a  few  feet,  on 
its  upper  side,  to  a  thin  edge  of  snow  that  led  to  the 
base  of  the  pinnacle  next  on  the  ridge,  some  forty  feet 
on.  Each  side  of  this  edge  was  a  thousand-foot  ice- 
chute,  and  south  winds  had  modeled  the  snow,  as  it 
fell  on  the  ridge,  so  that  the  edge  had  a  jutting  cor- 
nice ;  it  curled  over  northward  so  that  the  pointed 
shaft  of  an  ax,  driven  straight  down  at  the  place  that 
looked  at  first  fittest  to  walk  on,  made  a  clean  hole  that 
showed  daylight  below  and  the  cold  bluish  shine  of 
the  ice-chute,  three  hundred  feet  under. 

"  A  porter's  job,  Louis,"  said  Browne,  and,  chang- 
ing places,  addressed  himself  to  the  traverse,  hacking 
the  fair  and  false  cornice  away  with  his  ax  as  he 
went,  and  trimming  and  trampling  the  upright  snow 
edge  to  the  width  of  a  slim  garden  wall. 

Soon  he  was  thirty  feet  out  from  the  start;  halfway 
across,  but  the  rope  was  tightening  between  him  and 
June ;  she  must  start  before  he  was  over.  Louis  un- 
easily made  himself  fast;  he  adjured  her  to  sit  on  the 


52  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

edge,  to  bestride  it  and  hoick  herself  on  with  the  hands. 
'Every  one  does  it,"  he  said,  to  square  her  pride; 
'the  best  climbers;  I  myself,  often."  She  did  her 
best  not  to.  "  It  would  make  monsieur  safer,"  Louis 
urged.  She  weighed  that.  But,  no.  Comrades  owed 
not  help  alone  but  that  help  untarnished.  She  walked 
lance-straight  through  mid-air — so  it  felt — to  the 
midst  of  the  traverse  and,  planted  there,  kept  fear  at 
bay  for  ten  minutes,  second  by  second,  till  Browne, 
now  across  and  on  good  rock,  turned  and  saw  her 
neck  lifting  like  some  gracious  symbol  of  pride. 

The  pinnacle  next  was  easy;  the  one  after,  hard; 
the  one  after  that,  impossible,  frontally:  Louis  must 
turn  its  flank  cannily.  Out  of  snow-covered  ice  the 
pinnacle  rose  as  a  lower  tooth  from  a  gum,  the  gum 
scarcely  less  steep  than  the  tooth.  But,  just  where  the 
stone  tooth  rose  out  of  the  snow,  the  snow  swelled  out, 
gum-like,  a  little ;  not  that  the  ice  which  it  covered  was 
less  steep  there  than  below;  but  a  little  more  snow 
could  cling  to  it  there,  by  freezing  on  to  the  unsunned 
rock ;  and  so  for  a  couple  of  feet  from  the  base  of  the 
tooth  the  gum  only  fell  away  convex,  before  dropping 
sheer.  By  this  hanging  shelf  the  guide  set  out  to  steal 
round  the  foot  of  the  pinnacle,  gingerly  stamping  the 
snow  at  each  step  until  it  would  form  a  hard  tread, 
frozen  fast  to  the  steep  ice  beneath.  He  was  well  out 
of  sight  round  the  bulge  when  his  shout  came  for  June 
to  come  carefully  on.  She  committed  herself  to  his 
vestiges.  Aubrey,  well  planted,  paid  out  the  rope  to 
her  frugally.  Warily  coasting  the  swell  of  the  tooth 
she  paused  where  it  pushed  her  out  furthest. 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  53 

"What's  it  like?"  Aubrey  called.  Could  she  be 
giving? 

She  glanced  back,  a  merry  thought  curling  her  lip. 
"  It's  like  walking  on  one  stilt.  It's  made  of  an  icicle, 
with  a  hard  snowball  stuck  on  to  its  side,  and  that's 
the  stilt's  step."  So  he  saw  she  had  gone  clean 
through  fear,  if  she  had  felt  it,  and  come  out  beyond, 
to  the  mood  in  which  people  say,  not  "  Surely,  that's 
not  a  ghost?  "  but  "  What  a  fine  ghost,  to  be  sure!  ,: 

Joyful  yells  proclaimed  Louis  restored  to  the  ridge. 
June,  once  round  the  bulge,  almost  ran  up  the  neat 
little  stairway  of  steps  he  had  made  in  the  snow  to  its 
crest,  where  he  sat  gaily  reviling  the  circumvented 
enemy.  "  Dog  of  a  gendarme! "  *  he  mocked,  "  and 
easy,  too !  But  yes !  Absolutely ! ':  Louis  had 
courage,  not  chivalry.  June  laughed,  glad  to  have 
him  so.  In  her  old  thoughts  valor  had  always  tow- 
ered like  some  regal  grace  or  tall  plume.  Frigid 
image,  uncompanionable ;  beside  it  how  good  this  stout 
clay  that  blood  warmed,  all  common,  sun-baked  and 
dust-stained,  that  laid  on  in  fight  like  a  good  one,  and 
boasted  about  it  when  done,  and  kicked  at  the  slain 
like  a  triumphing  child ! 

Soon  they  lost  count  of  separate  towers  topped  or 
turned.  Above,  there  never  seemed  to  be  fewer  to 
pass;  indeed,  sometimes  more;  each  time  that  the 
next  stretch  of  ridge  became  aquiline,  file  after  file  of 
new  pinnacles  moved  into  sight  as  the  climbers  sur- 
mounted the  convexity;  points  that  had  looked  as  if 

*  The  slang  term  of  mountaineers  for  a  pinnacle  of  rock 
standing  on  a  ridge. 


54  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

the  summit  were  there  became  taking-off  places  for 
fresh  upward  leaps  of  the  old  spiky  edge.  The  three, 
from  their  black-frozen  north,  where  no  icicle  lost 
hold,  looked  out  of  Greenland  into  the  Tropics.  What 
a  noon  must  be  blazing,  up  there !  While  a  wet  glove 
cased  hard  on  the  hand,  they  saw  the  highest  turret- 
tops  bleach  and  ache  in  a  shimmer  of  heat  on  a  sky 
blue  as  skies  in  a  song. 

'  Much  more  of  it,  Louis?  "  asked  Aubrey. 

The  guide  gave  the  shrug  of  a  guide.  "  Were  the 
ridge  in  condition — perhaps  forty  minutes.  At  pres- 
ent— two  hours,  perhaps  four,  who  knows  ?  ': 

The  ridge  was  not  in  condition.  Each  chink  in  the 
rocks  had  been  stuffed  with  the  flying  flakes  of  some 
snowstorm;  the  tiniest  ledge  had  held  its  white  pat, 
with  wind-beveled  edges;  and  then  these  had  half 
melted  and  then  refrozen.  They  were  now  ice,  and 
on  these  ledges  capped  with  their  little  ice-cushions, 
the  party  must  find  or  make  foothold;  in  those  ice- 
choked  clefts  they  had  to  rummage  for  hold  for  their 
fingers. 

Meal-time  had  come  round.  Huddled  under  a  rock, 
lest  stones  or  ice  fall  from  above,  where  the  sun  was 
at  work,  they  crouched  on  their  heels ;  they  ate  and 
drank  and  their  souls  enjoyed  good  in  their  labor. 
What  a  savor  the  salt  had ;  what  goodness,  to  June,  the 
villainous  red  wine !  They  drank,  two  by  two,  to  the 
health  of  the  third;  it  seemed  natural.  In  the  world 
there  were  only  three  persons ;  all  day  their  three  lives 
were  being  laid,  turn  by  turn,  in  the  keeping  of  each, 
and  held  safe  there  with  passionate  care,   and  then 


THE  MORNINGS  WAR  55 

handed  on,  with  lightsome  trustfulness,  to  the  next. 
While  they  ate  they  said  trivial  things  with  a  kind  of 
blithe  gravity.  All  meals — the  saying  is  old — are 
sacraments  really;  only  some  vulgarization  of  them, 
or  of  us,  repels  us  at  most  times ;  we  cannot  communi- 
cate.    This  time  there  came  no  frustration. 


CHAPTER  V 

"  Hast  thou  entered  into  the  treasures  of  the  snow?  " 

Job  xxxviii.  22. 

EACH  pinnacle  now  seemed  worse  than  the  last. 
Two  hours  on  from  the  place  of  their  meal  came 
the  hardest  of  all.  It  rose  eighty  feet  from  the  ridge, 
which  was  here  of  pure  ice,  blue  and  hard,  its  crest 
about  as  wide  as  a  plank.  There  was  no  going  round 
that  pinnacle;  right  and  left  its  sides  fell  smooth  and 
sheer  into  ice  almost  as  sheer.  Straight  in  front,  too, 
attack  would  be  hopeless.  The  pinnacle  straddled 
across  the  ice  plank,  barring  it,  bulging  out  far  to  each 
side  of  it,  much  as  a  chimney-stack  does  on  the  ridge 
of  a  roof.  For  the  first  twelve  feet  of  its  height,  just 
where  the  plank  led  up  to  it,  not  a  wrinkle  of  rough- 
ness diversified  the  vertical  stone. 

There  was  only  one  chance.  As  far  away  to  the 
right  as  a  tall  stride  from  the  ice  plank  might  reach 
out  through  space,  Louis  descried  on  the  pinnacle's 
face  a  ledge  an  inch  wide  and  some  eight  inches  long ; 
not  a  flat  ledge,  alas ! — it  sloped  outwards  a  little  and 
had  a  poor  edge;  but  there  was  no  choice.  And,  five 
feet  above  the  ledge,  two  nearly  upright  fissures,  ten 
inches  apart  from  each  other  and  each  about  an  inch 
wide,  could  be  seen ;  for  a  couple  of  feet  they  ran 
upwards  till  one  of  them  widened  to  five  or  six  inches. 
And,  yet  two  feet  higher,  this  fissure  held  in  its  clutch 

56 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  57 

a  small  stone,  lodged  there  during  some  downfall  of 
broken  rock  from  above. 

Sitting  thirty  feet  off  on  the  last  rock  before  the 
plank  bridge,  they  considered  it  all.  Could  a  hand  only 
get  at  that  little  jammed  stone  -nine  feet  up !  Were  it 
once  grasped  you  might  hang  from  it,  safe  while  your 
grasp  held.  And.  while  it  held,  sharp  nails  on  the  inner 
edge  of  a  right  boot,  thrust  well  out  once  more  to  the 
right,  might  bite  on  another  minute  excrescence  of 
rock,  another  three  feet  out  over  space.  If  the  nails 
bit,  the  hands  might  then  be  invited  to  quit  the  jammed 
stone,  their  one  comfort  and  stay  in  the  passage,  and 
grope  for  projections  to  grip,  or  depressions  to  occupy, 
in  certain  bas-reliefs  out,  again,  to  the  right,  and 
higher.  Fondly  remembered  by  Louis  as  having  lain 
within  his  reach  when  his  right  foot,  in  some  other 
year,  had  trusted  itself  to  that  second  excrescence  of 
rock,  these  reliefs  were  now  buried  under  the  lower 
end  of  a  ribbon  of  loose  snow  that  seemed  to  run  up, 
curving  spirally  round,  towards  the  ridge  at  the  back 
of  the  tower,  the  party's  one  aim  in  life.  Could  they 
once  gain  that  snow,  Louis  averred,  they  were  made; 
beneath  it  were  all  sorts  of  good  things.  Trust  him — 
were  he  there  he  would  stick  his  claws  into  all  that 
would  be  wanted. 

They  stood  by  for  the  venture.  Louis  walked  the 
plank  of  ice  first,  and  then  June.  At  its  far  end  she 
stood  at  his  back,  ready  to  close  in  and  wait,  steadied 
against  the  pinnacle's  base,  as  soon  as  he  quitted  the 
ridge.  Should  he  slip,  and  so  fall  down  the  right- 
hand  precipice,  she  was  to  jump  down  the  one  on  the 


58  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

left,  that  so  they  might  both  come  to  rest,  hung  to  the 
ridge  by  the  rope,  like  a  donkey's  two  panniers. 
Browne  was  not  to  cross  yet,  but  sit  fast ;  with  a  turn 
of  the  rope  twisted  round  a  good  firm  wart  of  rock, 
he  would  now  be  the  caravan's  saving  point  of  ad- 
hesion to  absolute  fixity.  Also,  while  Louis  climbed, 
Browne,  thus  posted  afar,  would  watch  and  might  tell 
him  of  boons  to  be  reached  by  a  groping  finger-tip,  out 
of  its  owner's  sight. 

First,  leaning  out  from  the  ridge,  the  guide,  with  his 
extended  ax,  chipped  the  ice  off  the  first  one-inch 
ledge ;  he  picked  some  out,  too,  but  not  much,  from  the 
fissures  above.  He  then  slung  his  ax  to  his  wrist  and 
glanced  back  at  Browne.  "  You're  fixed?  "  he  asked, 
almost  severely. 

Browne  patted  the  stone  wart  and  nodded. 

'  Eh,  well — "  said  Louis  and  made  the  big  step. 

With  pricked  ears  that  read  sounds  like  print,  June 
heard  the  rim  of  serrated  steel  round  Louis'  sole  grind 
as  it  bit  on  the  tiny  ledge;  then  give,  with  an  ominous 
scrape,  for  some  infinitesimal  distance  upon  it;  and 
then,  finding  an  answering  roughness,  bite  and  hold 
fast,  while  the  guide,  in  the  same  swinging  movement, 
drew  off  his  left  foot  from  the  ridge,  reached  up  with 
both  hands,  and  committed  the  good  of  the  cause  to 
what  he  might  find  in  the  two  upright  cracks.  Then 
the  fighting  began.  Louis  climbed  with  a  wrestler's 
quick,  felicitous  cunning  at  seeing  the  way  to  a  new 
grip,  its  use,  and  the  time  when  its  use  would  be  past. 
At  one  moment  his  arms  would  be  crossed,  and  what 
clamped  him  on  to  the  vertical   rock  was  only  the 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  59 

lateral  pressure  and  counter-pressure  of  two  open 
palms  pulling  in  towards  each  other  from  opposite 
sides  of  an  upright  lamina  of  stone ;  at  another  he  used 
only  one  of  the  vertical  cracks  for  both  hands,  making 
as  if  to  tear  it  wider  open,  his  fingers  straining  out- 
wards sideways  against  its  two  opposite  walls;  and 
once,  as  he  went  higher,  he  seemed  to  have  no  de- 
scribable  handhold  or  foothold  at  all,  but  to  plaster 
himself  to  the  crag  by  the  aggregate  friction  of  elbows, 
knees,  toes,  chin  and  palms,  all  nuzzling  into  shallow 
depressions  of  its  surface  and  feeling  out  any  square 
inch  of  more  merciful  gradient. 

To  June,  standing  steady  on  guard,  there  had  come 
now  the  exaltation  of  sober  sense  that  danger  brings 
to  the  unafraid.  In  half-seconds  she  saw  whole 
ranges  of  practical  things  and  could  think  out  long 
trains  of  cause  and  effect,  compare  and  speculate;  an 
instant  gave  infinite  leisure ;  time,  the  old  fetter,  was 
knocked  off  the  mind.  One  trifle  she  noticed  was 
how,  on  that  first  ill-sloping  inch  of  stone  ledge,  Louis' 
boot  had  come  down  not  square  but  with  a  slope  too, 
its  sole  parallel  to  the  ledge's  surface.  Was  that  why 
it  slipped,  just  a  little,  at  first? 

"  It's  the  right  way;  "  Browne's  voice  came  across 
as  she  wondered.  Odd — another  obstruction  gone 
too?  Did  thought  pick  up  thought  without  the  old 
signaling?  "Gives  the  boot  more  bite,"  he  said. 
"  More  nails  get  a  go  at  it." 

She  nodded,  rejoicing  at  Louis,  to  see  how  each 
trooper  in  that  battalion  of  sinews  could  mind  its  own 
work,  and  the  captaining  wits  be  left  free  to  make  for 


CO  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

this  opening  or  that,  like  a  chief  who  has  only  to  run 
on  ahead  at  the  enemy,  knowing  the  breath  of  his 
men  will  be  hot  on  his  neck  as  he  draws  near  the 
trenches.  And  all  through  the  fight  the  guide 
pshawed,  groaned  and  swore  to  himself,  making  it  up 
to  his  spirit,  for  any  pangs  of  daring  in  action,  with 
free  leave  to  wallow  in  over-expression  of  fear  and 
disgust,  as  some  surgeons  will  grunt  and  snarl  their 
way  through  big  operations,  or  soldiers  go  blenching 
or  blubbering  into  an  action  that  wins  them  a  cross. 

Once  begun,  the  bout  had  to  go  quickly.  Merely  to 
cling  to  the  rock  by  such  holds  was  hard  work;  to 
hoist  by  them,  harder;  no  one  could  keep  it  up  long. 
Besides,  every  grasp  was  on  rock  glazed  with  ice;  the 
climber  raced  oncoming  numbness;  the  difficulty  must 
be  passed  before  fingers  lost  feeling.  And  now 
Browne  saw  that  Louis  was  going  to  be  checked.  He 
had  reached  the  lower  end  of  the  ribbon  of  snow,  but 
he  was  only  mounting  it  slowly  and  painfully,  digging 
his  fingers  and  boot-toes  searchingly  in,  but  seeming 
nowhere  to  find  what  he  sought.  He  had  overrated 
their  chance.  The  holds  he  had  thought  to  find  under 
the  snow  were  masked  in  ice ;  till  he  was  twenty  feet 
higher,  at  least,  the  most  he  could  do — if  he  could  do 
that — would  be  not  to  slip;  he  could  nowhere  stand 
squarely  enough  to  resist  any  pull  on  the  rope  from 
below.  And  already  the  rope  was  straightening  be- 
tween him  and  June.  Soon  it  would  tighten.  Five 
feet  more  and  the  guide  would  be  held  back,  clinging 
to  some  frozen  crevice  or  knob  with  fingers  themselves 
freezing  fast.     The  girl  must  then  start  up  the  worst 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  61 

piece  of  all  with  no  chance  of  help  from  the  rope  from 
above;  worse — with  a  certainty  that  if  she  slipped  she 
would  drag  the  guide  off.  Then  the  two  would  fall 
backwards  through  the  air,  till  the  rope  held  by 
Browne  would  grow  taut — for  one  instant  only ;  even 
the  best  ropes  have  limits  of  strength. 

One  thing,  he  saw,  could  be  done.  The  whole 
length  of  their  rope,  being  more  than  double  the  length 
of  the  part  between  Louis  and  June,  would  give  the 
guide  freedom  to  climb  nearly  up  to  the  ridge  and  to 
find  on  the  way,  if  he  could,  some  square  foot  of  flat 
rock  or  snow.  Planted  there,  with  the  rope  in  both 
hands,  if  they  were  still  able  to  feel  it,  Louis  might 
stand  a  fair  strain.  It  would  mean  Browne's  quitting 
their  one  firm  anchorage.     Still — 

"  All  right  there?  "  he  asked  June. 

"  Splendid."     Her  voice  had  a  kind  of  glow. 

"  Good.     I'm  coming." 

He  walked  the  plank  swiftly  and  faced  her,  he 
poised  on  the  ice  ridge,  she  leaning  her  back  against 
the  tower.  "  Louis  needs  rope,"  he  said ;  "  may  I  untie 
your 

She  worked  the  knot  round  on  her  chest  into  reach 
of  his  hand.  What  a  knot! — evil  in  kind  and  now 
frozen  rigid. 

"Oh,  Louis,  Louis!'  Browne  apostrophized  under 
his  breath  as  he  tugged  and  picked  at  the  tangle  of 
petrified  hemp.  "  How  he  loves  that  wicked  old  over- 
hand knot !  " 

"  The  dear  goose !  "  June  chid  too,  as  over  a  nice, 
naughty  child.     Both  could  speak  thus,  each  knowing 


62  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

the  other  loyal  in  mind  to  the  comrade  fighting  above. 

The  knot  gave  at  last,  but  only  a  little,  and  Louis 
had  climbed  on,  meanwhile,  to  the  end  of  his  tether; 
the  rope  came  down  taut;  not  even  so  much  of  slack 
was  left  as  was  needed  to  loosen  the  knot  completely 
and  run  the  loop  large,  so  as  to  lift  it  up  over  June's 
arms.  Twenty  seconds  would  finish  the  job,  but  not 
without  ten  or  twelve  inches  more  play  in  the  rope; 
and  now  Louis  was  straining  up  on  it  as  though  every 
inch  more  it  could  yield  was  a  lift  towards  deliverance. 
They  stared  about  with  one  quest  in  their  eyes;  was 
there  no  stone,  no  lump  of  snow  or  ice,  nothing  to  raise 
up  her  feet  those  few  inches  for  those  twenty  seconds  ? 

"  Bend  your  knee.  I'll  stand  on  it,"  she  suddenly 
said. 

He  could  not  reject  the  risk  for  her.  They  were 
like  one  person  now,  a  staunch  one,  in  whom  the 
members  do  not  tremble  one  for  another.  She  found 
means  to  hold  fast  while  he  closed  in  and  pressed  a 
bent  knee  to  the  rock,  and  then  to  step  up  and  stand 
on  his  leveled  thigh ;  she  balanced  deftly,  one  hand 
capping  the  ball  of  his  shoulder  and  one  pressed  flat 
against  the  smooth  rock.  Twenty  seconds? — they 
did  it  in  ten.  June  had  the  noose  slipped  over  her 
head  and  one  arm,  and  half  over  the  other,  when 
Louis'  voice,  sharp  with  anxiety,  came  to  them. 
"  Sir,  I  can  hold  here  no  longer.  I  must  have  more 
rope.     Untie  the  young  lady." 

"  It's  done,  Louis.  Pull  away — much  as  you  like," 
Browne  shouted ;  and  June,  from  her  perch  on  his 
knee,  looked  up,  calling,  "  Oh,  well  climbed,  Louis ! 


THE  MORNINGS  WAR  63 

Well  climbed!"  before  Browne,  with  both  hands  on 
her  waist,  set  her  down  like  a  rose-vase  too  full  of 
water.  She  was  unroped — a  torment  to  him  to  see. 
"Well  played,  you!  Well  played,  you!'  he  kept 
murmuring  as  he  undid  the  knot  tying  himself  at  the 
end  of  the  rope  and  tied  June  there  instead,  to  be 
ready  to  start  on  a  call  from  above. 

It  came  soon.  The  guide,  once  let  out  of  the  leash, 
had  gone  fast.  A  falsetto  whoop  of  delight,  a  wild 
scraping  on  rock  by  boot-nails  which  some  solid  hand- 
hold had  set  free  from  care,  and  a  shower  of  snow 
kicked  away  from  the  long-coveted  platform — all 
brought  the  news  of  a  fortress  taken.  June  set  out, 
exulting  to  move  again.  Browne  could  steady  her  off 
from  the  ridge;  the  tip  of  the  shaft  of  his  ax,  stretched 
out  to  rest  on  the  first  minute  ledge,  made  the  footing 
there  sure.  Above  it  the  tip  of  the  ax  could  still,  for 
a  few  feet,  be  pressed  up  under  a  groping  boot.  But 
she  needed  help  little.  In  five  minutes  more  she  was 
niched  beside  Louis  on  two  square  feet  of  flatness,  un- 
doing her  end  of  the  rope  with  numb  hands — Louis' 
were  too  numb  now — to  let  down  to  Browne.  Its 
frozen  kinks  came  to  him  dancing  and  curling  in  air 
and,  sped  by  the  guide's  entreaty  to  come  fast,  lest 
their  hands  be  frost-bitten,  he  tied  on  in  haste,  went  off 
with  a  rush  and,  on  reaching  the  little  stone  jammed 
in  the  crack,  did  not  wait  to  grasp  at  it  from  its  own 
rear  and  base  and  so  jam  it  only  the  more  with  his 
pull.  He  grabbed  at  its  top  from  outside  and  it  came 
right  out  in  his  hand :  he  hung  from  the  rope. 

Oh,  Louis,  I'm  sorry,"  he  groaned.     His  body 


G4  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

began  to  rotate,  spit-fashion,  horribly.  Then  the  rope 
gave  a  little,  and  then  he  saw  the  guide's  look  of  dread 
as  it  slipped  yet  another  inch  through  his  dead  fingers. 

Above  the  point  on  the  rope  where  Louis  held  it  a 
coil  of  it  lay  at  June's  feet.  There  was  that  much  to 
slip  through  his  fingers,  and  then — 

"  Can  you — ?  '  The  guide  looked  half  round,  but 
June  was  before  him — had  twisted  the  rope,  eighteen 
inches  above  where  he  held  it,  round  both  of  her  hands 
and  was  pulling  up  hard  and  straight  from  her  heels, 
as  an  oarsman  drives  from  the  stretcher.  Browne  saw 
her  face,  busy  and  set,  behind  Louis'  aghast  one,  and 
then  the  rope  held ;  the  four  hands  could  just  do  it. 
Three  seconds  more  and  Browne,  swinging  round  with 
a  jerk  to  get  his  face  to  the  rock,  had  thrust  both  hands, 
open  and  edgewise,  into  the  two  upright  cracks  and 
then  clenched  his  fists  till  each  hand  was  a  lump  large 
enough  to  stick  fast  in  the  narrows. 

"  Right.  Slacken  a  little,"  he  called.  Bending  his 
elbows  the  little  he  could,  he  drew  up  his  body  some 
three  or  four  inches,  unclenched  and  took  out  his  left 
hand  and  again  put  it  into  the  crack  and  reclenched  it, 
those  three  or  four  inches  higher,  then  drew  up  his 
body  again  and  took  out  the  right  hand,  and  did  it  all 
again,  till  at  last  a  foot  swung  out  to  the  right  could 
find  hold.  Not  much  of  the  skin  of  his  knuckles  was 
left  to  complain  when  he  reached  his  friends  and  found 
Louis  rubbing  June's  right  hand  with  snow.  Browne 
groaned  again,  to  see  the  groove  the  rope  had  indented 
there,  and  how  the  flesh  did  not  spring  up  when  re- 
leased. 


THE  MORNINGS  WAR  65 

She  was  quelled  by  the  cold,  quelled  past  trusting 
her  voice  to  sound  buoyant.  They  all  were.  Oh,  to  be 
out  of  that  bitter  black  North — icy  rock,  rocky  ice,  and 
that  brutal  pain  in  their  fingers,  an  indistinct  ache  as  of 
crushed  limbs;  it  bruised  the  spirit. 

They  re-roped  in  order  and  made  their  way  on  in 
dead  silence,  each  of  their  cowed  hearts  keeping  its 
numbness  all  to  itself,  lest  it  discourage  the  hearts  that 
each  felt  to  be  still  uncowed  in  the  others.  June  did 
not  look  up;  it  seemed  to  be  of  no  use;  it  was  so  long 
since  there  had  ever  been  sun  in  the  world.  Once,  as 
they  struggled  on  over  more  of  the  old  rocky  teeth, 
she  had  a  queer  fancy  that  some  rock  she  touched  with 
her  left  hand  was  warm.  Luxurious  fancy !  She 
checked  it,  almost  in  fear — was  she  growing  light- 
headed? Why,  they  were  in  shadow,  in  midwinter 
rigors;  Louis,  above  her,  was  audibly  cutting  steps  up 
a  slant  of  hard  ice,  their  old  enemy.  "  Canst  thou  not 
suffer  and  be  silent?  "  June  tried  to  say  to  herself,  over 
and  over,  like  a  prayer,  holding  despair  off  with  the 
words.  Droning  it,  with  her  eyes  on  her  feet,  she 
heard,  as  sounds  fail  away  while  a  doze  becomes  sleep, 
the  hacking  of  Louis'  ax  growing  less  loud,  the 
strokes  slower,  more  wide  apart;  they  stopped;  a  rust- 
ling noise,  short,  crisp,  delicious,  heard  long  ago  in 
some  happier  time,  had  succeeded  them.  Starting,  she 
looked  up;  she  saw  Louis,  transfigured  in  sunshine, 
stroll  up  a  soft  white  bank  bejeweled  like  dewed  grass, 
and  then  her  own  face  was  in  heaven's  good  warmth, 
bathed  in  it. 

Louis  was  turning,  his  face  one  repose  of  beatitude. 


66  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

"  We  are  arrived !  "  Louis  said.  Where  he  stood  the 
last  incline  died  off  on  the  crown  of  a  huge  cap  of 
snow,  the  roof  of  the  mountain.  It  swelled,  rose  and 
fell,  like  a  down,  a  genial,  incredible,  softly-rolling 
world  to  be  found  at  the  tip  of  that  ladder  thrust  up 
into  the  air. 


CHAPTER  VI 

"What  must  be  the  delight  of  a  mind  rightly  touched,  to  gaze 
on  the  huge  mountain  masses  for  one's  show,  and,  as  it  were, 
lift  one's  head  into  the  clouds !  The  soul  is  strangely  rapt  with 
these  astonishing  heights."  Conrad  Gesner. 

THEY  dropped  on  the  snow;  every  muscle  ran 
slack;  the  rope  lay  out  loose;  from  rucksack 
and  pockets  they  spilt  food,  maps,  bottles,  corkscrews, 
pell-mell,  for  the  joy  of  doing  things  carelessly. 
There  they  sat  or  lay,  glorious,  luxurious,  replete 
with  mere  remission  of  tensity,  taking  long,  leisurely 
pulls  at  the  great  tankard  of  their  achieved  safety: 
it  bubbled  and  sparkled. 

"  What  o'clock?  "  June  asked,  out  of  depths  of  in- 
difference.    "  Is  it  eleven  yet?    Hardly." 

Louis  smiled  toward  the  sun. 

"  Three  forty,"  said  Browne.  They  all  laughed. 
So  time  goes  when  you  live. 

Louis  half-heartedly  put  it  that  even  the  easy  way 
down,  which  they  meant  to  take,  needed  daylight.  The 
others  derided  him. 

"  Eh,  well !  "  said  Louis,  and  lit  a  pipe  blissfully. 
No  flame  from  the  struck  match  was  seen  in  the  sun- 
light; only  a  quiver  of  smoke  rising  over  it — straight, 
the  air  was  so  still. 

"  Cost  what  cost,  we  must  stay  awhile,"  June  smiled 
to  Louis,  who  wished  to  learn  English. 

67 


68  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

The  world,  now  a  conquest  of  theirs,  lay  out  below 
like  a  great  map  spread  on  a  floor.  Almost  under  the 
lowered  sun  Mont  Blanc  stood  obtuse  amidst  arrowy 
peaks,  like  a  house  among  poplars.  Eastward  the 
Matterhorn's  bent  tip,  monstrous,  a  whim,  and  a  child's 
whim,  not  an  architect's,  brazened  it  out,  its  queer  dis- 
tinction killing  lovelier  rivals.  Along  the  Rhone  val- 
ley's dark  trench  the  eye  felt  its  way  down  forty 
miles  till  it  hit  on  a  speck  of  the  Lake  of  Geneva's  blue. 
Eighty  miles  away  snows  on  the  Dauphiny  Mountains 
were  shining,  hoisted  into  mid-air  on  black  plinths. 
And  southward  the  whole  Lombard  plain  stretched  and 
lengthened  out,  endless,  dim  with  deepening  purples 
of  farness  and  of  evening. 

Browne  picked  out  a  point  that  he  knew  in  the  Mari- 
time Alps ;  it  showed  through  a  gap  in  the  Graians. 
'  From  there,"  he  told  June,  "  when  the  air  has  been 
well  washed  with  rain,  you  see  Corsica — only  a  blur,  of 
course,  rising  out  of  the  level  shine  when  the  sun's  on 
the  Mediterranean."  He  turned,  searched  the  north, 
and  found  the  dorsal  fin  of  an  Oberland  mountain. 
'  From  up  there  you  see  the  Black  Forest — right  into 
Germany." 

She  gazed  and  gazed,  thrilled  with  the  feel  of  a  new 
reach  in  the  one  sense  which  up  here  was  at  work, 
where  all  was  blank  for  the  rest.  The  last  scent  had 
died  off  behind  them  eight  hours  ago,  at  some  grass 
with  orchises  on  it;  the  last  sound  not  made  by  them- 
selves— the  creak  of  a  chough  or  some  scared  mar- 
mot's whistle — had  come  scarcely  higher.  Sight's  own 
task  had  been  simplified :  not  busy  now  with  the  near, 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  60 

tumbled  riches  of  lowlands,  it  put  forth  its  strength 
on  sheer  distance,  and,  stirred  by  its  own  strength  and 
drunk  with  it,  took  on  new  powers  and  visions  of 
powers. 

"  See  that  dip?  "  Browne  pointed  north-eastward. 
She  saw.  "  The  St.  Gotthard  is  there.  The  Rhine 
and  the  Rhone  and  the  Po  are  all  there,  scrambling  for 
water.  It's  thrown  them  like  coppers;  Adriatic  and 
North  Sea  fight  for  a  snow  flake." 

June  stared  as  one  stares  at  the  fire  and  tries  to 
recall  some  old  view  and  to  think  out  a  path  for  the  eye 
through  the  banked  mists  that  had  bounded  it.  Now 
the  path  opened;  the  bodily  eye  seemed  aware  of  more 
and  yet  more,  till  June  could  not  tell  sight  from  reverie. 
Europe  was  lying  before  her  unrolled;  she  stood  at  its 
center  and  saw  the  mills  there  grind  the  powder  that 
spread  Holland  out  on  the  sea  and  let  Venice  rise  from 
it ;  reaching  across  to  where  the  Bernina  gleamed  high 
in  the  East,  she  could  lean  over  pools  where  the  waters 
are  gathered  that  moat  Bulgaria  and  carry  the  grit 
that  redraws  the  Black  Sea.  Rivers  appeared  in  all 
their  lengths,  with  their  adventures,  their  dawdlings 
and  hastenings;  the  Rhine,  after  all  its  swayed  ferry- 
boats, lazy  at  last  among  tulips  and  windmills;  the 
Danube  constricted  to  tear  past  Belgrade  and  Vienna, 
between  speeding  walls,  like  a  horse  breaking  through 
a  cordon.     "  What's  that?  "  she  cried. 

The  roar  of  a  far-off  explosion  was  reaching  them, 
dreamy  and  bodiless  first,  and  then  rounding  and  hard- 
ening into  fullness.     A  rattle  of  minor  artillery  fol- 


70  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

lowed  it,  each  crack,  again,  muffled  at  first  as  if  some 
muting  membrane  enwound  it. 

'  See !    On  Mont  Bouquetin  !  "  Louis  pointed. 

Browne  added,  "  Low  down — near  the  glacier  by- 
no  w." 

Through  a  mile  and  a  half  of  quivering  glare  June 
saw  a  trail  of  black  specks  fall  pausingly,  second  by 
second,  down  a  ledged  precipice.  "  The  everlasting 
hills!"  said  Browne.  Slowly  the  commotion  ended; 
the  spilt  scuttle  of  coal — so  it  looked — was  coming  to 
rest  at  the  foot  of  the  crag,  spoiling  a  snowfield.  "  A 
thousand  tons  less  of  the  Bouquetin  now!  " 

Long  after  all  was  at  rest,  to  the  eye,  the  last  blurred 
report  of  rock  smashing  on  rock  droned  across  through 
the  heat  to  them.  Then  stillness  twice  as  still  as  before 
settled  on  all  the  immobile,  glittering  desert  of  stone 
and  snow,  rising  and  falling,  falling  and  rising.  June 
had  felt  something — not  learnt,  but  felt;  all  of  the 
earth  that  seems  hard  and  lasting  was  tumbling  away, 
over  there,  into  rubbish ;  she  saw  the  hills  as  they  are — 
a  last  ruin  almost,  and  how  the  tips  of  to-day's  peaks 
had  lain  in  black  bottoms  of  valleys.  Something  be- 
fell her ;  time  went  the  way  space  had  gone ;  it  shrank 
into  a  thing  excitingly  small;  fancy  could  grasp  it  and 
play  with  it  here,  where  the  work  of  a  million  quarry- 
ing frosts  and  suns  lay  out  to  be  seen  like  a  stone- 
breaker's  finished  heap  by  a  road. 

Ecstasy  caught  her;  the  earth's  convexity  seemed 
a  thing  real  to  sense;  the  foot  braced  itself  to  it;  the 
eye  felt  a  glee  at  it ;  poised  on  the  ball  spun  in  space, 
June  held  her  breath  with  delight  at  its  revolution. 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  71 

And  then  with  a  sudden  tenderness  she  espied  some- 
thing. Down  the  bed  of  a  valley  a  railway,  a  road  and 
a  stream  twisted  their  triple  cable,  the  strands  plaiting 
over  and  under.  It  moved  her  oddly;  the  two  tiny 
threads,  carefully  fitted  in  with  the  third,  had  the 
touching  dearness  of  children's  minute  and  fugitive 
engineering.  What  was  it  that  had  put  bars  till  now 
between  her  and  such  good  pangs  and  pleasures? 
Between  her,  too,  and  her  comrades  of  all  times  in  this 
place,  her  peers  in  drawing  the  lot  for  this  high  adven- 
ture of  being  alive,  ever  since  Alps  were  first  Alps? 
Where  were  the  passes,  she  asked  gaily,  eagerly — 
where  were  the  old  famous  passes  over  to  Italy  ? 

"  Which  of  them  first  ?  "  Browne  asked.  He  looked 
at  her  in  wonder.  Her  mouth,  like  a  bud  long  kept 
back,  had  broken  into  incredible  bloom,  a  rose  with  the 
many  curves  of  all  its  soft-lipped  petals  not  fixed  and 
assembled,  but  changing,  successive,  melting  curve  into 
curve. 

"  The  Mont  Cenis,  please."     She  had  heard  of  it 

most. 

He  picked  out  two  pretty  high  points  in  the  distant 
south-west.  "  The  road  runs  just  below  them,  a  little 
beyond  them." 

They  fell  to  work,  taking  light  from  each  other's 
excitement;  they  set  trains  and  pomps  of  old  travelers 
tramping  across — Frankish  kings  on  their  way  to  be 
crowned,  and  Holy  Roman  Emperors  and  other  great 
ones  of  the  earth — Louis  the  Pious  drawing  rein  on  the 
top  of  the  pass  and  founding  the  guest-house,  and 
Charles  the  Bald  dead  on  the  way.    Neither  knew  any 


72  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

history,  to  speak  of;  only,  in  each  of  their  minds,  some 
visible  fact  had  stuck,  here  and  there,  at  some  time  or 
other,  and  then  lain  forgotten;  now  these  emerged 
from  the  closet,  turned  into  morsels  of  livid,  tingling 
experience.  The  two  capped  reminiscences  shyly, 
afraid  of  swaggering. 

"  Didn't  Henry  the  Fourth  go  that  way  to  Ca- 
nossa?  "  she  asked,  like  a  born  Catholic. 

Browne  could  believe  it.  And  people,  four  hundred 
years  later,  tobogganed.  "  A  Duchess  of  Saxony — 
fancy  some  dragonsome  dowager — tearing  across  in 
the  snow,  to  help  a  Duke  of  Burgundy,  was  it?  She 
slid  from  the  top  down  to — Lanslebourg,  isn't  it?  ' 

She  laughed.  He  had  wanted  her  to,  that  the  rose 
might  curl  more  petals.  He  looked  at  them.  '  Then, 
a  mere  hundred  years  after,  Montaigne,"  he  added, 
when  only  to  look  would  begin  to  be  rude. 

She  grew  serious  again.  "  And,  all  the  time,  pil- 
grims— long  chains  of  black  spots  on  the  snow,  both 
ways,  in  and  out — drawn  in  on  Rome  and  sent  out 
from  it,  as  people's  blood  is — "  She  stopped,  her  little 
figure  of  speech  taking  fright  at  itself.  So  she  looked 
a  little  august  again,  and  remote.  She  always  did 
when  alarmed  or  abashed. 

He  did  not  know  that.  He  only  saw  what  looked 
like  a  gesture  of  quick  withdrawal  into  dim  inner  re- 
cesses of  orthodoxy.  So  that  was  her  line,  he  reflected 
lightly.  He  gave  her  time  to  come  out;  then  they 
began  the  game  over  again,  picking  out  a  fresh  pass ; 
the  Genevre  it  was,  a  nick  in  a  ridge  a  great  way  off; 
they  romped  through  the  sights  you  might  have  seen,  if 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  73 

you  had  sat  there  by  the  road,  with  time  done  away 
with — Caesar's  bald  crown,  damply  beaded  perhaps, 
coming  up  into  sight,  on  his  way  to  the  taking  of  Gaul; 
and  drift  on  drift  of  rug-headed  Lombards  surging 
across;  and  then  the  Franks  pushing  them  back;  and 
Charlemagne  crossing,  it  might  be,  to  take  in  old  Lom- 
bard)' ;  "  and  the  Pope,  Innocent  the  "     Browne 

was  rollicking  on. 

"  A  Pope  up  there?  "  June  checked  for  an  instant : 
the  petals  drew  in  as  anemone  petals  will  do,  even  for 
a  light  cloud. 

"  A  Pope  and  an  Emperor,"  Aubrey  rushed  on,  to 
blow  the  cloud  away;  "  Frederick  the  First  and  a  king 
or  two — Charles  the  Eighth  was  it?— to  fall  upon 
Italy;  Louis  the  Thirteenth  with  Richelieu  beside  him; 
and  then  a  short  pause,  and  a  French  army  swings  up 
the  road;  it's  off  to  Magenta,  Solferino." 

Europe's  life  marched  in  serried  procession;  it  had 
the  color  and  clangor  of  one  pageant,  gone  through 
in  an  hour,  as  Europe's  whole  face  had  come  within 
sight,  and  the  make  and  whirling  of  the  earth  into 
reach  of  the  body's  senses.  In  that  world  transfigured 
into  radiant  coherence  they  sat  god-like,  fingering  their 
treasures,  till  some  peak  a  mile  off  in  the  west  threw  a 
shadow  that  stole  up  the  snow  to  their  feet.  Not  two 
hours  till  dark!    Louis  was  fidgeting. 

With  stiff,  happy  muscles  they  stumped  away  over 
the  dome  to  its  southern  edge  and  began  to  lower  them- 
selves, ledge  by  ledge,  down  a  rude  natural  staircase, 
ruined  and  rock-strewn,  leading  down  some  thousands 
of  feet.    Browne  went  first  now,  Louis  last.    They  all 


74  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

fell  silent  again  as  they  plodded  on,  only  with  some 
jocund  word  of  companionship  now  and  again,  blithe 
like  a  lamp  lit  in  early  twilight.  Then  the  light  thick- 
ened, and  the  silence,  and  in  the  silence  the  reinsula- 
tion  of  minds  began.  June  felt  a  grasp  giving  way, 
helplessly;  could  she  not  keep  any  hold  on  that  untur- 
bid  and  lightsome  world?  Would  it  be  all  gone  that 
night  when  in  bed  she  tried  to  live  back  through  the 
day  ?  Was  it  going  from  Browne,  too,  she  wondered  ? 
She  peered  at  what  she  could  see  of  him — only  some 
short  curling  hairs  that  had  looked  fair  just  now  on 
the  back  of  a  neck  burnt  brown.  If  the  vision  were 
failing  him,  too,  she  was  sorry  and  wished  she  could 
help;  and  then  in  a  spasm  of  angry  shame  she  struck 
her  wish  down.  To  think  she  could  help,  or  had  any 
part  in  it  all !  Vanity,  vanity !  Why,  it  was  his  eye 
that  made  things  over  again;  what  you  saw  with  his 
help  was  like  what  poets  had  worked  on,  or  legends 
grown  to;  it  rose  to  the  state  of  things  primal  or 
storied;  his  mind  took  in  a  thought  and  appareled  it, 
somehow,  by  that  very  act  with  glamour  or  grandeur 
or  magical  simpleness.  What  might  it  not  do,  that 
power?  Not  merely  things  seen  and  touched  might 
now  be  fallen  from  grace  and  waiting  in  rust  and  dust 
till  the  mind  came  that  could  break  on  them  like  the 
dawn,  that  both  sees  life  and  gives  it.  Courage,  con- 
trol, charity,  faith — no,  he  had  not  religion;  she  knew 
by  his  courtesy  when  their  talk  neared  it.  But  if  he 
did  ever  have  it — 

Their  way  was  a  zigzag  now;  in  the  last  of  the  light 
his  face  was  in  profile  at  one  moment,  then  it  came  full 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  75 

and  then  turned  away  again.  If  one  were  dead  and  in 
some  pallid  heaven  it  would  be  good  to  escape  for  a 
moment  and  see  a  face  red  and  brown  like  poppies  in 
corn,  and  eyes  with  lids  dropped  at  the  outer  end  a 
little,  as  if  with  looking  through  wind  and  rain  into 
distance,  and  wrists  where  the  joint  was  a  modeled 
steel  nut  among  swart,  hairy  straps,  and  a  neck  that 
indexed  a  fit  frame's  whole  volume  of  litheness.  She 
stumbled  and,  flushing  unseen  in  the  dusk,  recovered 
herself  quickly  and  tried  to  fasten  her  eyes  on  the 
path.  But  she  looked  on  at  Browne  now  and  then: 
she  had  to :  she  had  to  verify  things  about  him — to  see 
what  was  well  made  and  what  not ;  well  or  ill,  they 
were  all  rather  touching,  somehow,  because  they  were 
just  what  they  were,  as  a  baby's  face  is,  for  better  or 
worse.  Soon  it  was  only  one  outline  she  saw,  and 
then  none;  it  was  dark;  they  had  relit  the  lantern  and 
Louis  and  Browne  had  changed  places. 

Nine  o'clock  and  the  inn  still  a  good  hour  off.  Ten, 
and  the  turn  of  a  corner  brought  its  lights  into  sight, 
some  of  them  fixed,  some  four  or  five  not;  these  swung, 
rose  and  fell,  flitting  this  way  and  that  about  the  inn 
door;  one  dived  into  darkness  and  then  re-emerged 
with  two  more  beside  it.  All  must  be  carried  in  hand 
by  a  gathering  company. 

Louis  sniffed  wrathfully.  "  Euh  !  A  search  party  ! 
Sheep  sent  to  look  for  lost  sheep !  '  He  yodeled  de- 
rision ;  alas !  unheard,  for  the  flitting  lights  drew  into  a 
group  and  then  out  into  a  line,  a  relief-column  mobil- 
ized. 

Louis  ran  over  its  probable  units  bitingly :  cook  of 


76  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

the  inn;  under-boots — "  Cretin  de  premiere  force,  je 
vous  dis  franchement !  " ;  head  waiter — "  boule  de 
suif,  absolument!  ";  the  brother  of  Mademoiselle; 
and  the  good  God  alone  knew  what  poor  creatures  be- 
sides, "  and  to  rescue — me,  for  example ! ':  But  how  to 
stop  the  imbeciles  ?  "  Monsieur,  assist  me ! ':  He 
waved  the  lantern  aloft,  and  all  the  might  of  his  in- 
dignation put  itself  into  a  bawl,  Browne  chiming  in 
soul  fully. 

The  lights  below  ceased  to  move.  Their  stricken 
immobility  made  each,  to  June,  a  symbol ;  it  stood  for 
a  figure  listening  with  held  breath.  Louis  improved 
his  advantage  by  letting  a  yell  that  tore  almost  a  visible 
rent  in  Night's  tympanum. 

That  did  it:  through  space  an  answering  shout 
could  be  felt  slowly  winging;  it  came  spent  and  small. 
By  now  all  intentness  was  gone  from  the  lanterns 
yonder.  Some  of  them  waved  a  response;  all  of  them 
moved,  but  not  as  before.  The  face  of  a  remitted 
purpose  was  drawn  on  the  darkness  with  the  same  pen 
of  light  that  had  drawn  the  braced  look  of  a  muster 
and  then  the  strained  air  of  listeners.  To  June  it  was 
thrillingly  legible.  Was  it  not  ? — she  was  about  to  ask 
Browne,  but  stopped.  Bars  that  were  melted  at  noon 
were  re-forming  now,  as  icicles  were.  Browne  stood  a 
little  behind  the  lantern;  silhouetted  black,  square, 
monumental,  he  seemed  withdrawn  into  enigma.  She 
left  it  unsaid,  and  they  tramped  on.  Louis  was  silent 
too,  dourly  figuring  that  under-boots  to  himself  and 
maturing  jibes  for  emission  at  supper-time. 

Two  of  the  lanterns  came  up  a  few  hundred  yards 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  77 

to  meet  theirs.  One  was  in  Guy's  hand.  '  Unhappy 
young  people!  "  his  flute  voice  purled  like  one  of  the 
many  streams  that  had  come  into  hearing  again  as  they 
descended;  "  a  few  minutes  more  and  the  emotions  of 
rescue  were  ours!  The  chef  was  translated;  the  eyes 
of  the  under-boots  had  strange  lights.  And  lo !  you 
are  safe  all  the  time  and  our  unheroism  repossesses  us." 

"  My  dear  rash  young  lady,  the  fright  that  you've 
given  us !  '      This  came  from  the  other  lantern. 

June  turned  in  surprise.  "  Father  Power !  You 
here !  " 

"  At  your  bidding."  His  voice  had  a  tinge  of  re- 
monstrant austerity. 

"  Oh,  do  forgive  me ! ':  She  had  the  contrition  of 
one  at  last  fully  waked,  for  the  first  incoherences  of 
arousal.  "  Tell  me — about  all  this  horribleness  at 
Cusheen." 

"  To-night !  And  you  famished ! '  The  priest's 
voice  was  kind  again. 

"  Yes — now."   ' 

Browne,  lingering  at  good-nights  with  Louis,  heard 
her  insist.  Two  minutes  later  he  trailed  his  battered 
feet  down  the  inn's  long  matted  corridor,  now  a  deli- 
cious tunnel  of  warm  light,  bored  into  the  mountain 
night's  solid,  cold  darkness.  Through  a  door  on  one 
side  he  saw  June,  with  her  tired  eyes  hugely,  lucently 
dark,  leaning  over  a  sitting-room  table,  her  back 
crushed  under  its  load  of  exhaustion.  She  seemed  to 
be  importuning  the  priest.  Under  the  hanging  oil 
lamp  her  wide  mountain  hat  half  shadowed  her  face 
into  mystery.     Hearing  his  step  she  looked  up,  rose 


78  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

and  said  good-night  and  thanked  him — "  for  such  a 
good  day,"  with  the  civil  stress  formally  lavished,  as 
if  the  lamplight  dazed  comradeship. 

"  What's  this  they're  like?  "  he  thought  to  himself, 
meaning  her  dilated  eyes.  Something  it  was  that  he 
knew ;  it  had  attracted  him  once,  or  often.  He  went  to 
bed  fumbling  to  find  the  lost  likeness,  and  then  thought 
he  had  it,  but  was  not  sure.  They  had  gleams  like 
deep  water  awash  under  lamp-lighted  bridges  on  sum- 
mer nights,  when  it  seems  good  to  dive  into  and  swim 
in.  Was  that  it,  or  was  she  like  some  one  he  seemed 
to  know  better  than  any  one  else  in  the  world? 
— yet  he  could  not  think  whom.  He  fell  asleep  with  it 
unsettled. 


CHAPTER  VII 

'The  dark  places  of  the  earth  are  full  of  the  habitations  of 
cruelty."  Psalm  lxxiv.  20. 

THE  priest  had  been  fencing.  "  We'll  talk  it  all 
over  to-morrow,"  or  "  Wait  and  we'll  have  a 
great  talk  in  the  morning,"  the  fatherly  man  of  forty- 
five  had  replied  to  June's  queries. 

But  June,  like  a  child  excited  and  tired  past  sleep, 
grew  fluent,  elate,  tried  to  find  ways  round  his  guard, 
told  him  how  she  had  been  shown  where  the  old 
pilgrims'  road  ran,  over  the  snows.  "  It's  still  now,  up 
there ;  only  the  hot  air  quivering  over  the  old  roads  to 
Rome;  no  one  on  them — only  that  glass-colored 
shiver,  like  a  flame  made  out  of  water.  It  seemed  like 
an  old  thing  burnt  out,  and  all  the  time  you  were  down 
there  in  the  train,  rushing  towards  Italy."  Almost 
light-headed,  she  tried  to  be  cunning,  as  tipsy  men  do. 

He  saw  through  it :  any  one  could.  "  Ay,  and  a 
right  tired  pilgrim.     You'll  let  him  rest  now  ?  ,! 

'  I'm  sorry.    I  didn't  think.    Just  tell  me  one  thing." 

"  About  your  poor  bedesmen  in  Connaught?  ': 

"  Just  how  they  were  when  you  left?  " 

'  God  help  them!    But  wait  till  the  morning." 

"  But,  Father—" 

"  To  bed  with  you !     Off,  now !  " 

"I  will,  only—" 

"  Only  you'd  argue  the  point  with  your  priest." 

79 


80  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

'  No,  but — did  you  know  ? — there's  the  man  here 
that  Cusheen  belongs  to?  " 

'  How  wouldn't  I  know,  and  I  just  after — ?  No, 
not  a  word  till  the  morning." 

"  Guy  knows  Mr.  Newman.  They  were  out  here 
while  father  and  I  were  in  Italy.  I  made  a  plan.  I 
asked  Guy  to  meet  us.  I  hoped  he  might  bring  Mr. 
Newman.  He  did,  and  then  I  wrote  off  to  beg  you  to 
come." 

"  The  diplomacy  of  you !  " 

"  I  thought,  if  some  one  could  tell  Mr.  Newman — " 

"  You've  been  at  him?  " 

'  I !  '  She  glowed,  a  fierce  Daphne.  She  canvass 
the  satyr !  But  she  made  allowances.  "  You  haven't 
met  him." 

'  That  have  I,  these  few  hours  back."  She  looked 
at  him  quickly;  there  were  things,  then,  that,  priest 
as  he  was,  he  could  not  see  so  surely  as  she. 

He  had  a  light  too.  He  saw  her  seeing,  and  guessed 
what  she  saw  and  all  that  it  meant.  '  You've  a  right," 
he  said,  "  to  feel  as  you  did,  and  I  with  the  thumbs  of 
me  pricking  and  he  a  perch  off."  Official  omniscience 
must  learn  as  it  goes.  "  You  must  leave  him  to  me  to 
deal  with."  By  this  time  he  felt,  in  good  faith,  that  it 
had  been  he  that  espied  the  goat  legs,  and  she  that  had 
missed  them,  as  maidens,  no  doubt,  ought  to.  "  The 
fact  is,  I  hope  that — " 

"  Yes?  "    She  settled  to  listen. 

He  laughed,  not  to  be  caught.  '  You'd  wheedle 
me  on  till  I'd  have  it  the  weight  of  the  world  on  my 
mind  that  I'd  talked  the  life  out  of  you.    Come  now." 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  81 

She  fell  into  place  at  last,  like  a  child  long  drilled, 
under  his  benedictive  hand.  "  Good-night  to  you 
now,"  he  said  with  an  authentic  paternal  goodness, 
rather  touchingly  out  of  place  on  comely  features  that 
had  not  quite  done  with  their  youth.  "  The  blessing 
of  God  be  upon  you  and  stay  with  you." 

June  laid  to  rest  limbs  content  with  sane  weariness; 
with  them  the  mind  too  fell  backwards  gently.  Once, 
for  a  moment,  her  whole  body  shuddered  uncontrol- 
lably; she  had  recalled  a  look  of  Newman's  that  flashed 
into  her  mind  a  sudden  knowledge  of  how  Moors  price 
slave-girls,  and  Newman's  smile  when  he  talked  to 
herself — a  smile  not  at  anything  said  at  the  time,  but 
at  something  implied,  as  it  seemed,  to  underlie  all  speech 
between  young  women  and  men,  some  horrible  winking 
of  whole  sex  at  whole  sex,  a  jauntily-hinted  collusion 
between  demure  female  lures  and  leering  male  read- 
iness. There  in  the  dark  her  face  burned  loathingly. 
Yet — oh,  assuaging  thought,  to  wash  the  bespattered 
mind  white — she  knczu  now  that  a  girl  of  her  age  and 
a  strange  man  of  Newman's  could  be  in  a  wild 
together,  all  through  a  long  day  that  assayed  them  both 
in  some  new  way  in  each  of  its  changeful  hours,  and 
the  girl  not  once  feel  that  her  sex  was  deranging  com- 
radeship. Knowledge  of  that  kept  the  earth  clean;  it 
preserved  the  stars. 

•  •••••  • 

Guy,  restored  to  his  sphere,  the  terrace,  had  brought 
together  there  the  parish  priest  of  Cusheen  and  its 
owner.  "  And  how're  the  wicked  husbandmen?'' 
Newman  had  genially  asked. 


82  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

The  priest  took  a  measuring  look  at  him.      l  That's 
what  he's  like,  then?'    the  look  might  have  meant. 
'  You  heard,"  he  said,  "  of  the  hunger,  a  year  back?  ' 

"  Hunger?    Don't  you  believe  it." 

"  Ah !  You  were  there?  "  You  could  not  have  told 
it  was  not  serious,  eager  inquiry. 

"I!  I  was  not.  I've  a  use  for  my  life.  But  there 
wasn't  a  shot  at  Dan  Joyce — you  know  Joyce,  my 
agent? — the  whole  blessed  winter,  and  that's  what 
they  do,  the  first  thing,  as  soon  as  they're  peckish." 

Guy  was  beginning  "  My  dear  sir — "  to  Newman. 
It  seemed  a  waste  not  to  let  a  light  into  his  mind — so 
as  to  find  out  what  he  would  make  of  a  hint  of  the  way 
that  pastors  regard  murder  done  by  their  lambs. 

But  the  priest's  humility  was  much  too  proud  to 
take  help  against  an  infidel's  boorishness.  He  made  a 
very  slight  opening  movement  with  one  hand,  as  if  to 
let  fall  through  its  fingers  such  specks  of  stray  dirt  as 
the  Newmans  of  this  world;  he  went  on,  persistently 
suave.  "  Mr.  Newman,  if  you  could  be  with  us  there, 
but  for  the  length  of  a  day — " 

'  Last  day  I'd  be  anywhere,  eh?    No,  sir;  I  let  'em 
the  land;  I  didn't  promise  to  throw  in  the  shootin'." 

Any  scorn  that  may  have  blazed  inside  Father 
Power  was  smokeless.  He  raised  no  protest  beyond 
going  on  from  that  word  of  his  own  at  which  this  being 
had  failed  " — you'd  see  the  potatoes  are  rotted,  and 
they  not  ripe." 

"  A  man  takes  the  risks  of  his  business,"  said  New- 
man, his  chronic  smile  stiffening  as  if  it  might  end  set 
fast  as  a  rigid  sneer  or  bare-toothed  snarl. 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  83 

Still  no  tang  of  asperity  soured  the  priest's  tongue. 
-  I'm  told,"  he  said,  "  the  great  landlords  in  England 
take  a  share  in  the  risks  of  the  farmers."  An  old  hand 
with  the  froward,  he  went  about  Newman,  he  tried  to 
get  in,  as  though  into  a  house  shut  in  his  face,  patiently 
trying  each  window.  So ;  that  one  was  fast ;  he  went 
to  the  next.  "  There  isn't  the  food  in  the  place,  nor 
money  to  buy  it — and  pay  the  rent  too." 

•'  Don't  fear  for  me.  We'll  shake  the  rent  out  of 
'em." 

"  But,"  Guy  was  beginning,  fearing  a  too  early  end 
for  this  engaging  passage  of  arms,  "  if  the  stone  really 
is  bloodless — "  when  Newman  cut  cheerfully  in. 

"  Joyce  and  I'll  manage,  so  long  as  there's  no 
'  humane  '  bleaters  about." 

"  I've  the  fear,"  said  the  priest,  "  that  you'll  have 
half  the  land  on  your  hands." 

But  Newman  was  off  on  a  trail  of  his  own.  :'  Only 
last  Christmas  some  sickener  from  England  came 
nosing  round  at  evictions.  Contracts! — oh,  he'd  not 
heard  of  them.  '  Barbarity  ' — that  was  his  game.  I 
heard  he  had  the  wickedness  to  snivel  about  it  in  some 
rag,  up  in  the  Black  Country." 

"  Eh?  "  said  Guy,  playfully  anxious. 

"  The  Northerner — that  was  the  name." 

Guy  enacted  chagrin.  "  My  heart  told  me.  New- 
man, 'tis  mine — three-sixteenths  of  it." 

"  Keep  'em  away  from  the  other  thirteen,  then,  or 
you'll  have  'em  mangy." 

"  Your  idea  of  property's  rights  is  one-sided,  my 
friend."    Guy's  eyes  roamed  the  air;  his  voice  was  the 


84  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

very  breath  of  idly  provocative  thought.  "  Think. 
May  not  a  paper,  too,  be  some  poor  soul's,  and  that  soul 
have  its  yearning,  also,  for  revenue — revenue  not  to  be 
had,  perhaps,  if  the  paper  be  not  endeared  to  yet  other 
poor  souls  by  giving  them  something  to  cry  about? ' 

'  Well,  I  don't  want  to  be  hard.  Let  'em  cry  about 
me  when  no  one  plays  up  with  the  rents." 

'  Did  you  know,"  Power  asked,  "  that  all  the  rent 
paid  you  last  Christmas  was  found  by  that  English 
reporter — the  '  sickener  '  ?  " 

'  That's  interesting,"  Newman  said,  with  an  air  of 
preparedness  to  face  any  nonsense  that  came.  Guy 
liked  this  duel  between  two  contrasted  forbearances. 

Power  continued :  '  The  people  in  England,  away 
in  the  north,  when  they  read  what  he  said  of  the  state 
we  were  in,  made  a  fund  up  among  them  and  sent  it  to 
me,  and  no  sooner  had  each  of  the  tenants  his  share  of 
the  cash  than  off  he'd  be  to  your  agent  to  have  the  rent 
paid  and  be  done  with  it." 

"  Oh,  they're  great  people.  They'd  not  draw  a 
pound  from  the  bank — " 

"  Is  it  savings,  and  they  eating  grass!  "  The  priest 
all  but  broke  bounds. 

"  When  they're  sick — I  believe  you.  They'd  not 
walk  to  Tubber  post-office  to  draw  out  the  bit  they  owe, 
but  they'd  cadge  on  poor,  soft-hearted  lambs  over  here. 
Well,  they're  free  men,  and  I  ain't  a  tyrant.  As  long 
as  I'm  paid  I  don't  care  how  they  get  it." 

"  You  don't?  "  the  priest  asked,  with  intention. 

"  I  do  not." 

"  You'd  not  be  against  it?  " 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  85 

"  Fd  not  take  the  trouble." 

"  Joyce  did,  last  winter.  He  put  a  taboo  on  the 
Northerner  man  till  there  wasn't  a  bed  or  a  car  he 
could  get  in  the  place." 

"  He's  a  great  mind,  is  Joyce." 

"  No,  but  it's  you  are  magnanimous.  Joyce  put  a 
stop  to  a  job  that  was  doing  you  more  good  than  any 
one.  Three- fourths  of  the  rents  the  man  from  the 
Northerner  got  out  of  England,  and  he'd  not  have 
rested  until  he'd  got  all,  and  arrears,  and  food  for  the 
people,  if  Joyce  could  have  let  him  alone.  I  ask,  would 
you  have  him  impeded  again  if  he  came  back 
to-morrow?  " 

"Well — ? '''  It  was  Newman's  pride  that  no 
passion,  however  sacred,  should  keep  back  from  birth 
whatever  might  live  to  be  good  business. 

"  I  don't  say  he  will,"  the  priest  said,  "  after  the 
way  he  was  treated.  Only,  it's  autumn  now,  the  time 
English  papers  can't  tell  what  on  earth  to  be  at,  and 
they  wanting  to  seem  fit  to  read.  God  knows  but  we 
might  find  one  that  would  quit  asking  what  age  to 
marry,  or  why  go  to  church,  and  would  give  people  all 
the  occasion  to  cry  that  anybody  could  want,  with 
telling  the  way  it  is  at  Cusheen."  Something  of  frailty 
did  cling  to  the  priest ;  for  disdains  that  he  mastered 
or  hid  he  had  to  make  up  to  himself  with  tiny  oozings 
of  irony  squeezed  out  now  and  again. 

Guy  noticed;  it  felt  as  if  he  had  bitten  an  olive,  the 
epicure.  Newman's  palate  told  him  of  no  taste;  his 
mind,  though,  descried  still  more  clearly  what  might 
turn  out  to  be  business,  the  fine  gold  of  business,  calling 


86  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

out  to  be  disengaged  from  such  dross  as  attended  it. 
"  Well,"  he  said,  "  it  depends — for  one  thing,  on  which 
rag  it  is.  Here's  our  friend  owns  an  eighth  of  a  rag 
and  a  little  bit  over.  Now  if  he'd  give  the  office  to  all 
the  wild  eighths  to  behave — " 

Guy  disclaimed  power  over  the  Northerner.  Still 
he  might  put  up  a  prayer — he  had  never  done  it  yet — 
to  the  editor.  So  much  he  said,  for  he  liked  people's 
plans  to  go  forward ;  it  drew  people  out. 

Newman  proved  that  it  did.  "  What  I  can  not 
stand,"  he  said  with  some  fervor,  "  is  having  '  human- 
ity,' that  sort  of  slime,  daubed  all  over  the  place.  I 
don't  so  much  mind  if  a  tramp  comes  round  begging. 
You  see,  it's  his  game.  Even  a  thief;  well,  it's  all 
right  to  set  the  dog  on  him;  that's  your  game ;  still,  he's 
sort  of  a  man  and  a  brother;  he's  playing  to  win,  same 
as  yourself.  But  to  have  pure  philanthropists  poking 
round — it's  the  true  holy  terror.  You're  not  an  arch- 
angel, thank  God  " — Guy  bowed  to  the  eulogy — "  only 
I  want  to  know  where  you  come  in — your  paper,  I 
mean — the  whole  boiling  of  vulgar  fractions.  Excuse 
country  manners,  but  what  I  say  is,  if  a  man's  straight 
you  ought  to  see  where  he  comes  in." 

Guy  reassured  him  gaily.  Had  Newman  not  heard 
Father  Power?  What  could  profit  a  journal  more  than 
to  melt  readers'  hearts  and  then  give  them  its  shoulders 
to  weep  upon,  at  its  usual  price  ? 

"  You  think,  swelpyergud,  it's  an  asset  ?  ': 

"  Sterling,"  Guy  testified  gravely. 

"  Put  it  at  that,  for  the  moment.  Next  point — ■ 
who's  your  man  ?    Some  mad  idiot,  same  as  last  year, 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  87 

running  down  us  poor  landlords  ?  Or  some  one  who'd 
not  make  a  beast  of  himself,  but  would  take  a  look 
round  with  Dan  Joyce  and  go  into  the  facts  and  put  it 
down  fair  in  the  paper,  how  God  hadn't  come  up  to 
time  with  the  fruits  of  the  earth,  and  would  man 
kindly  see  to  it  ?  That's  good  religion.  I'm  not  a  pi 
man,  but  I'm  not  against  decent  religion." 

During  this  allocution  the  priest  practised  virtues, 
and  Guy's  contentment  was  flecked  by  his  considerate 
sense  of  the  priest's  pangs  of  suppression ;  so  it  seemed 
to  be  for  the  best  that  the  moment's  awkward  silence 
which  followed  was  broken  by  the  all-seeing  waiter. 
"Pardon,  messieurs!  The  caravan,  which  arrives!' 
He  offered  the  field-glass  again  and  indicated  the  top 
of  the  Dent  Rouge. 

It  was  the  moment  when  June,  from  their  hell  of 
cold,  was  to  see  Louis  ascend  into  heaven.  The  priest 
found  the  place  with  the  glass.  "  I  see  only  flashes  of 
light,"  he  said.  "  One,  then  another,  another,  and 
they  timed  like  the  ticks  of  a  clock.  Is  it  some  kind 
of  a  signal  they're  making?  ': 

The  waiter,  elate  to  know  better,  expounded.  '  The 
guide's  ax.  He  lifts  it;  he  lets  it  fall;  each  time  he 
lifts  it  the  sun  strikes  the  steel." 

Two  specks  of  black,  Father  Power  now  saw, 
attended  the  recurrent  gleam.  Its  flashing  stopped 
suddenly.  Then  a  third  speck,  Louis,  lost  till  now  in 
the  dazzle  he  made,  was  black  on  the  snow.  The 
priest  turned  to  Guy.  "  There  are  three  of  them  in  it?  ' 

"  My  sister,  a  guide,  and — "  Browne,  somehow, 
seemed  to  need  delicate  definition. 


88  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

'A  porter?'  The  priest's  voice  did  not  lessen 
Guv's  sense  of  that  need. 

'His  wicked  pride  says  so,"  Guy  laughed;  "an 
amateur,  really." 

"  Ah  !  a  relation  of  yours?  " 

'  An  Oxford  acquaintance  of  Newman's  and  mine. 
'  Driftwood  spars,'  you  know,  '  that  meet  and  pass,'  as 
my  father  would  say." 

"  I  see,"  said  the  priest,  and  tried  to. 

Newman  was  thoughtful  too.  Through  the  glass 
he  watched  those  three,  who  were  not  lame,  come  to 
rest  like  happy  gods,  uplifted  in  visionary  sunlight, 
throned  on  the  summit  of  the  earth.  A  pang  of  ex- 
clusion privily  bit  the  unwhining  cripple.  They  were 
'  in  it,"  not  he;  it  made  them  "a  set,"  with  mutual 
bonds  of  their  own,  each  bond  a  fresh  blackball  to  him. 
June,  by  herself,  was  null  to  him;  Browne  was  null 
too ;  June  as  a  girl  whose  rank  put  her  beyond  casual 
pursuit,  Browne  as  a  poor  grotesque,  a  curio  of  crazy 
motives  and  valuations.  Yet  the  twTo,  so  void  singly, 
hurt  him  together :  such  pairs  needed  severance. 

'  A  writer,"  Guy  was  telling  the  priest.  Guy  had 
had  an  idea.  Not  people  only  but  chance,  too,  had  its 
humors,  its  moods,  its  little  fumblings  at  plans.  Let 
it,  too,  be  helped  to  do  its  germs  of  amusingness  jus- 
tice, such  as  they  were.  "A  novelist,  dramatist,  cer- 
tainly; journalist,  possibly."  Guy  trailed  the  words 
temptingly. 

One  of  the  trout  rose.  "Journalist?"  Power 
asked;  "  on  the  Northerner,  is  it?  " 

"  Not — yet,  that  I  know  of." 


THE  MORNIXG'S  WAR  89 

"  You  mean  that  he  might  be?  " 

Guy  gave  a  shrug  that  said,  "  How  can  one  tell,  in 
this  ramshackle  world?  But  perhaps  we  might  try," 
and  looked  around  at  Newman.  So  did  the  priest. 
Their  eyes  agreed,  up  to  a  point.  As  Newman  lowered 
the  glass  Guy  began  sweetly :  "  How  can  you  thank 
Father  Power  enough?  He  suggests  the  redoubtable 
Browne — " 

"  Browne? '     The  priest's  voice  was  sharp. 

"  Our  friend  up  aloft,"  Guy  explained. 

"  Yes,  yes,  yes  " — the  priest  hushed  up  his  own 
interjection.  "Of  course  the  name's  common  in 
England." 

Guy  took  up  his  thread.  "  He  suggests  that  if 
Browne  were  asked  nicely  he  might — with  Mr.  Joyce's 
concurrence — do  you  that  service." 

"  Eh?  "    Newman  was  grimly  suspensive. 

"  The  friend,"  Guy  softly  tripped  on,  "  of  your 
youth;  the  artist — one  who — you  hoped,  did  you  not? 
— might  do  greater  things  if  he  turned,  say,  to  land- 
scape, or  genre,  to  pathetic  genre,  than  if,  mistaking 
his  vein,  he  labored  at  portraiture." 

Newman  stared.  It  piqued  Guy  to  plant  notions 
in  him,  floating  the  seeds  to  their  place  on  flimsy 
attached  wings  of  irony.  Newman  saw  only  the  thistle- 
down flying,  and  while  he  thought  "Rubbish!'  the 
seeds  rooted. 

Guy  babbled  on,  half  turning  to  Power.  "  For  New- 
man's friend,  Browne,  what  a  crisis!  He  stands  at 
crossways,  with  uncertain  feet,  like  the  hymned 
maiden.    A  step  to  the  right  and  he  makes  for  the  fame 


90  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

of  the  novelist,  satirist,  artist  in  caricature;  he  lives 
in  London,  in  Surrey,  in  the  great  world,  guying  its 
types.  A  step  to  the  left  and  he  may  be  shunted  into 
a  siding — was  it  a  parting  of  roads  that  he  stood  at 
just  now?  Or  of  waters?  Or  railways?  Newman,  in 
your  pure  prayers  be  my  poor  metaphors  remembered. 
Yet  why  talk  of  them  in  this  your  moment  of  distress 
— your  tragic  choice  for  your  friend?  No,  I  turn 
back ;  I  cannot  do  it ;  I  withdraw  Father  Power's  sug- 
gestion ;  I  say  to  you,  '  Pause,  Newman,  pause ;  con- 
sider how,  if  the  Northerner  fasten  but  one  claw  in 
your  friend,  his  bright  genius,  from  which  you  have 
hoped  so  much,  might  be  lost  to  portrait  art — wasted, 
perhaps,  in  padding  for  life  those  stodgy  columns  in 
the  obscure  North." 

"  You  mean,  if  he  slobbers  all  right  on  a  specimen 
job—" 

"  You  are  hot  on  the  trail  of  my  fear." 

"  They'd  take  him  on  as  one  of  their  regular 
bleaters  ?  " 

"  Say  roarers.  They  tell  of  a  dearth  of  young  lions. 
Editors  scan  the  horizon  of  Libya  anxiously." 

"  Well — "  Weighing  the  matter,  Newman  looked 
up  again  through  the  glass  at  the  three  infinitesimal 
images  of  beatified  rest.  '  They're  taking  their  time," 
he  said  almost  acidly.  "  When  do  you  want  this  thing 
done?" 

The  priest  hid  his  joy.  "  I'll  be  back  at  Cusheen 
this  day  fortnight.  Any  time  then."  With  a  casual 
air  that  was  very  well  done  he  held  out  a  hand  for  the 
glass  and  looked  through  it.     "  It's  desperately  tiring 


THE  MORNINGS  WAR  91 

work  for  your  sister,"  he  said  to  Guy,  putting  it 
down. 

"  Well,  we  go  home  to-morrow,"  said  Guy. 

"  Is  it  early  to-morrow?  " 

"  The  afternoon." 

"  That's  the  way.  Then  there'll  be  time  for  your 
sister  to  hear  all  the  news  of  Cusheen.  It  was  for  it 
she  brought  me." 

The  deuce  she  did,  Newman  reflected.  Could  no- 
body let  his  affairs  alone?  Still,  there  were  points  in 
this  precious  plan.  It  stank,  in  a  way;  a  sniveling, 
puling  business,  it  reeked  of  '  good  works  "  in  the 
sniffiest  of  inverted  commas.  But  rents  were  rents, 
come  in  how  they  might ;  land  your  fish  in  a  butterfly- 
net,  it  would  still  be  salmon.  And  caricature,  that  new 
and  beastly  menace,  might  be  kept  off.  And  that  little 
gang  of  two  up  there  might  be  pretty  well  broken  up  if 
Browne  could  really  be  shipped  off  into  the  North, 
where  no  one  was  heard  of,  and  whites,  he  fancied, 
soon  sank  almost  into  natives.  So  the  three  below, 
with  their  variously  mixed  and  qualified  cross-wishes 
and  half-intentions,  struck  up  between  them  a  cold 
league  to  mature  that  arrangement,  and  meanwhile  the 
sun  left  the  tip  of  the  Dent  Rouge  and  the  three  on  it 
took  motion  and  vanished  towards  the  pit  of  shadow 
beyond. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

"Even  so  quickly  may  one  catch  the  plague?" 

Twelfth  Night,  I.  v. 

IT  was  noon  next  day  before  June  was  alone.  From 
the  inn  she  could  see  Browne  flat  on  a  rock,  in  the 
flannels  of  ease,  bathing  in  mist-filtered  sunshine.  She 
had  a  mission  and  went  to  him  straight,  defying  her- 
self to  find  it  hard,  or  furtively  sweet:  that  way  would 
sentiment  lie,  the  fen  of  treaclesome  slime,  a  vain  trap 
to  set  for  clear  spirits.  She  would  prove  that :  one  clear 
spirit,  with  something  to  ask  of  another,  would  ask 
erectly,  with  fronting  eyes. 

She  came  to  it  soon.    '  You've  seen  Father  Power?  ' 

He  laughed.  "  Have  I  not  ?  And  your  brother,  and 
Newrman.  Such  pulling  of  wires! — the  whole  inn 
creaked." 

He  was  easier  now  to  talk  to ;  people  are,  with  whom 
you  have  faced  hardness,  even  in  play.  Yet  June's 
embassage  halted.  Before  she  came  out  she  had  known 
what  to  say ;  it  was  framed  in  her  mind,  and  the  words 
picked.  But  now  mere  improvisations  pushed  in, 
shoving  aside  those  accredited  envoys.  '  You  write?  ' 
— an  abrupt  :  You  write?" — was  one  of  the  inter- 
lopers. 

"  I  try,"  he  said,  a  little  abashed  at  the  stand-and- 
deliver  tone  under  which  she  hid  tremors :  he  did  not 
see  them. 

92 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  93 

"  To  write — what  ?  "  The  thought  crossed  her  that 
"  Father  or  Guy  would  not  have  said  that  ";  but  she 
stuck  to  her  question.  Why  not?  She  had  not  read 
a  word  of  his  writing. 

"  That's  the  trouble,"  he  said. 

"To  choose?" 

"  Yes,  between  the  gorgeous  impossibilities." 

"  Impossibilities?  " 

"  Pretty  well." 

"What  are  they?"  She  was  sitting;  she  or  her 
dress  made  a  settling  gesture;  her  clothes  seemed  to 
say,  "  Let  us  go  into  this." 

He  caught  her  mood  cheerfully.  "Well;  number 
one — you  may  write  to — to  bring  news." 

"News?" 

"  What  the  great  ones  bring — the  big  ideas  that  no 
one  had  thought  of — new  ways  of  taking  things — 
everything." 

"Why  not  try  that?"  She  smiled,  with  a  waken- 
ing sense  of  seeing  what  he  could  not  see.  Did  he  not 
know  that  he  had  the  touch — that  he  was  king  and 
could  cure  the  evil  and  raise  eyes  and  ears  from  the 
dead? 

"  To  bring  news  you  must  have  it.     I  haven't." 

"  I  see."  She  laughed  low,  with  a  quick  pleasure. 
His  self-undiscernment  was  like  a  child's,  and  a  child 
can  be  helped  and  not  help  others  only.  "  Well,  and 
the  other  impossible?  " 

"  That's  to  bring  what  isn't  news  now,  though  it 
was — to  tell  people  things  that  they  heard  long  ago, 
but  don't  know,  they  were  told  them  so  dully." 


94  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

"  That  mountains  are  high,  and  that  one  sees  from 
them  ?  " 

"  Yes,  and  all  the  copy-book  headings  shining  dis- 
coveries, unexplored  islands — " 

"  Sighted  from  mastheads  at  dawn."  Her  face 
sparkled:  her  mind  took  the  road  with  his;  it  ran  on 
ahead,  laughing. 

"  And  even  one's  country  worth  liking ; "'  he  fol- 
lowed, wondering.  Why,  she  could  understand  any- 
thing, even  the  simplest  things.  Wondering,  he  looked 
at  her.  She  had  her  hands  round  her  knees  as  she 
sat ;  one  of  them  held  a  raised  sunshade.  Her  hat  of 
brown  straw  had  a  great  brim,  not  closely  woven;  jets 
of  light  pierced  it;  and  now  the  sunshade,  inattentively 
held  while  the  talk  grew  eager,  drooped  to  one  side 
and  would  half  recover  itself,  and  droop  again,  so 
that  over  her  face  light  and  shade  flickered  and  chased 
till  her  eyes  were  like  water  dancing  in  Venice  between 
sunlit  walls,  and  her  cheeks  like  ripe  wheat  across 
which  a  wind  puffs  fleet  shadows. 

Time  stopped,  for  him,  as  he  looked ;  but  to  her  his 
long  look  was  physical  touch,  yet  not  loathsome.  It 
shook  her  to  find  that;  she  had  to  withdraw  herself, 
not  from  the  look,  but  from  her  own  abashed  sense 
that  nothing  within  her  resented  it.  "  I  have  two 
countries,"  she  said,  just  to  say  something,  to  make 
a  break. 

"England  and — ?  "  There  his  voice  hung  for  a 
moment,  lingering  out  the  lease  the  unfinished  speech 
gave  of  a  right  to  gaze  at  those  scudding  chequers  of 
light  and  half-light. 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  95 

Again  she  broke  it  off.    "  Ireland." 
"  I  have  them  too.     Do  they  fight  in  yon?  ' 
"No,"  she  said  offhand;  and  then,  with  less  sure- 
ness,    "  No.     But  I  was  never  in  Ireland." 

"  Xor  I.  And  yet,  isn't  this  odd?  When  yon  speak 
it  seems  as  if  I  had  come  to  some  place  that  I  know 
better  than  England." 

"Yon  feel  that,  too?v  They  eyed  each  other 
gravely,  like  children  exchanging  the  marvels  of  their 
vast  experience,  and  so  the  sunshade  swayed  in  a 
slacker  hand  and  the  gleam  and  shadow  flitted  the 
faster  over  her  face  till  all  that  was  she  in  it.  all  that 
he  would  have  liked  to  disengage  from  that  fugitive 
interposed  fantasy,  showed  like  a  bright  thing  sunk  in 
rippled  clear  water;  it  baffled  and  broke  and  challenged 
and  eluded.  In  their  unashamed  wonder  they  looked 
and  looked  on,  with  the  web  already  forming  over  their 
eyes  that  Nature,  to  gain  her  own  splendid  and  pitiless 
immortality,  weaves  from  the  red  of  the  rose  and  the 
honey  of  heather  to  mesh  into  its  service  the  uncon- 
scious senses  of  her  soon-spent  butterflies  and 
bees. 

"  How  much  are  you  Irish  ?  "  he  asked,  in  a  voice 
that,  since  he  last  spoke,  had  traveled  and  had  ex- 
periences. 

"  Half.  It  was  my  mother.  And  you — how 
much  ?  " 

"  Oh,  ninety-nine  hundredths,  no  doubt." 
She  marveled.     Only  "no  doubt"!     And  that  dis- 
missive "  Oh  "  of  indifference.     "  Surely  your  name 
isn't  Irish,"  she  said. 


96  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

"  The  odd  one  hundredth's  name ;  some  trooper  of 
James — or  Elizabeth — lost  in  the  bogs." 

"  Don't  you  want  to  find  out?  "  She  chafed  at  his 
incurious  tone;  it  was  part  of  a  naive  classlessness  in 
him,  not  like  her  own  men's  old  Whig  pose  of  out- 
wardly equal  membership  in  an  implied  republic  of 
the  elect,  but  something  that  seemed,  without  any 
malign  intention,  to  show  up  that  quaint  concessive 
irony  as  a  mere  masking  and  mincing  class  pride.  Guy 
and  her  father  had  felt  it  through  all  Browne's  cru- 
dities;  it  had  attracted  them;  in  it  their  passionless 
equity  saw  a  thing  they  had  tried  to  do,  only  it  was 
done  better;  and  they  were  not  jealous.  But  June  was 
for  them.  Why,  if  they  walked  on  hidden  cork  legs 
of  race  conceit,  should  any  one  else  have  flesh  limbs? 
"Couldn't  you  hunt  up  old  records?"  she  too  perti- 
naciously asked;  "old  registers — the  births  and 
marriages?  " 

"  Ours  were  burnt  with  the  churches,  my  father 
said,  in  the  Penal  times." 

June  said,  "You  were  Catholics,  then?"  her  face 
lighting. 

"  All,  till  my  father.  He  changed."  The  words 
put  out  that  light,  and  so  he  felt  like  a  boor  and  he  had 
to  go  on  saying  something  or  other;  to  leave  it  there 
seemed  too  blunt.  "I  don't  know  about  it  exactly; 
my  father  would  not  talk  about  it — about  religion  at 
all.    He  was  generous.    He  wanted  to  leave  me  free." 

"  Poor  little  boy !  "  she  exclaimed,  with  a  little 
flinch  of  the  lip  at  this  picture  of  infant  liberty. 

"  Oh,  I  was  all  right,"  he  said  sharply,  disclaiming 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  97 

pathetic  interest ;  his  face  was  hot  at  the  thought  that 
he  might  have  seemed  to  claim  it;  that  were  indeed  to 
be  the  sorriest  sneak  of  emotionalism — and  a  fraud, 
too;  what  day  of  his  childhood  had  not  been  happy 
adventure  ? 

At  his  coldness  the  look  shrank  with  which  she  had 
spoken,  a  look  like  that  of  a  friendly  stranger  bending 
over  a  child  whom  some  one  has  left  free  to  earn  itself 
food.  So  he  read  it ;  it  seemed  oddly  easy  to  read,  like 
a  page  in  a  book  known  long  ago.  Oh,  yes,  of  course 
he  remembered ;  his  mother  had  looked  like  that  once. 
It  was  after  his  father's  death,  when  she  was  slipping 
back  terrified  towards  the  fold  that  he  knew  they  had 
left  together  in  their  young  courage.  She  had,  by  a 
coincidence,  used  the  same  words — had  said  "  Poor 
little  boy !  "  as  she  kissed  him  good-night  at  a  time 
when,  as  he  guessed,  some  children  said  prayers.  And 
now  he  must  talk  again,  and  that  lightly,  to  soften  the 
seeming  rebuff — what  a  bungler  he  was,  and  his  talk  a 
mere  train  of  efforts  to  mend  blunder  with  blunder! 
So  the  next  moment  he  felt  he  had  been  too  personal, 
for  he  had  said,  "  It's  curious;  you  have  a  look  of  my 
mother — a  lift  of  the  eyes." 

She  laughed  mercifully.  "  As  if  the  lower  lid  had 
to  be  climbed  by  the  pupil,  for  it  to  see  over.  Guy 
always  laughs  at  that  trick.  But  you're  wrong.  It's 
my  mother  that  gave  me  it."  There  a  pause  left  her 
graver.  "  It  was  a  wish  of  hers  made  me  come  out  to 
you  now."  He  looked  a  question.  She  added,  '  No; 
she  is  dead  long  ago." 

"  So  is  mine." 


98  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

She  waited,  feeling  her  way.  He  fetched  no  polite 
rubbish  to  fill  up  the  space.  When  blanks  of  silence 
came,  in  the  talk  that  ensued,  they  were  left  to  run  on 
until  words  came  again  of  themselves,  as  nature  lets 
the  underground  reservoirs  refill  at  ease  for  each  jet 
of  her  intermittent  streams.  Nor  did  any  abruptness 
of  either's  trouble  the  other  much.  Swimming  to- 
gether, the  thoughts  of  each  dived  where  they  would 
and  came  up  where  they  would. 

She  cast  back  to  where  they  had  started.  '  You've 
seen  Father  Power?  " 

"  Yes,  and  all  the  intriguers.  They  have  a  great 
scheme.  They  all  want  different  things,  and  two  of 
them — oh,  not  your  brother — are  like  dog  and  cat; 
they  stiffen  with  hating  each  other,  at  sight.  And  yet 
they  make  out  that  if  I  came  into  the  game,  and  also 
some  editor  up  in  the  North,  they'll  all  win." 

"  So  shall  I."  She  got  it  out  bravely.  "  I  came  to 
ask  you  to  do  it." 

They  waited,  and  thought  worked.  They  told 
you,"  she  presently  asked,  "  all  about  the  starvation?  ' 

"  Only  a  little.     It  seemed  to — pain  Newman." 

She  emitted  scorn  like  a  physical  ray,  a  shaft  of 
fierce  light  with  visible  edges.  As  soon  as  she  could 
she  spoke  restrainedly. 

"  Households  of  people  not  sleeping  all  night  with 
the  pain  of  being  hungry.  Babies  crying  and  crying, 
the  way  babies  cry  for  a  moment  or  two  in  nurseries 
while  a  nurse  rushes  to  warm  the  food  for  them — only, 
those  babies  cry  on  and  on,  through  whole  days. 
Nothing  to  give  them.     Their  mothers  just  wait  and 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  99 

hear  the  crying  grow  weaker."  Before  the  angry  blaze 
was  quite  sunk  in  her  eyes  her  mouth  was  tremulous  at 
sight  of  her  own  circumstantial  vision  of  these  mis- 
eries. He  thought  her  arms  moved  a  little,  in  some 
rudimentary  gesture  of  nascent  instinct,  as  if  to  draw 
in  and  pillow  a  small  and  troubled  head  on  her  breast ; 
the  unfixed  opalesque  luster  of  girlhood  deepened 
itself  for  the  moment  to  one  clear  glow,  constant  and 
warm,  the  radiance  of  something  that,  like  the  sun, 
would  mother  all  children  all  over  the  world. 

"How  you  know  the  place!"  Browne  said 
amazedly. 

"  In  a  way — yes.  I'm  never  to  see  it,  though.  Oh, 
I  can't  tell  you  why,"  she  said,  to  his  look  of  surprise; 
she  straightened  and  hardened  a  little,  as  some  people 
of  spirit  do  when  they  call  up  affronting  recollections. 
An  instant  of  this  and  again  she  had  herself  in  hand 
and  could  make  for  her  aim.  "  But  I  was  to  help  the 
people  there  always — my  mother  wished  that — and  to 
get  other  people  to  help  them.     Will  you? J 

What  could  he  do  but  one  thing?  She  looked  at 
him  full,  with  a  noble,  frank  importunacy,  unflinching 
and  unwheedling;  the  effort  was  proudly  forced  to 
look  effortless,  almost ;  only  the  slightest  ruffling  of  the 
beauty  of  her  petitioning  lips  betrayed  it;  roses  full 
blown  and  brave,  a  little  vexed  by  the  wind,  had  that 
look,  he  thought.  What  could  he  do?  Merely  to  say 
"  Yes  "  was  nothing.  He  lied  hard  to  make  her  be- 
lieve that  it  was  not  she  that  had  turned  him ;  his  will 
to  unload  her  of  debt  to  him  rushed  out  to  meet  half- 
way her  resolve  to  incur  it. 


100  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

She  saw,  and  had  to  give,  too,  what  she  had,  if  only 
a  confidence.  '  Some  one,"  she  plunged  at  it,  "  did 
these  poor  people  a  wrong;  some  one  close  to  my 
mother;  at  least,  one  of  them  was;  there  were  two." 
She  broke  off  again,  with  a  moment's  lapse  into  small 
petulance,  that  of  her  old,  unfired  days.  She  said, 
"  Oh,  you  can't  understand;  you  aren't  a  Catholic." 
Then  ruth  pricked  her  again  for  turning  on  him  the 
roughness  of  her  own  wrestle  with  her  own  task. 
'  Oh.  I  don't  mean  that;  only,  it  was  a  baseness.  I 
don't  know  it  all — I  don't  even  know  the  worst  per- 
son's name.  I  was  not  to.  Nobody  spoke  of  them.  It 
was  as  if  they'd  been  hung  for  murder." 

He  could  not  guess ;  he  scarcely  tried  to ;  little  the 
whole  enigma  mattered  to  him,  except  for  the  flame 
and  the  clouds  that  it  brought  to  the  girl's  face,  and  the 
combats  that  this  and  that  impulse  of  frankness  and 
shame  and  pride  and  impatience  lost  or  won  on  that 
beautiful  battlefield.  How  she  changed!  Her  color 
was  changed;  not  the  tint  fixed,  at  least  for  an  hour,  on 
cherries  or  pinks,  but  a  rising  and  falling,  a  beating 
pulse  of  tone,  not  beating  by  rule — or  only  by  this  one, 
that  through  every  change  the  blood  was  true  to  the 
emotion;  the  lights  on  neck  and  brow  signaled  can- 
didly. More;  the  flush  was  the  very  emotion;  the  look, 
disdainful  or  kind,  was  thought  itself;  body  and  soul 
and  mind  in  her  ran  into  one,  like  the  thing  a  song 
means  and  the  way  it  is  said  and  the  tune  that  it  is 
sung  to ;  like  the  last  note  of  a  cadence  the  least  of  the 
curls  of  sunned  hair  on  her  neck  could  thrill  his  sense 
with  the  splendor  of  all  of  her.     Looking  at  one,  he 


THE  MORNING'S  .WAR  101 

asked,  without  caring  to  know,  "  Had  they  owned 
the  land,  those  two,  and  sold  the  poor  wretches  to 
Newman  ?  " 

"If  that  were  all !  No.  There  have  always  been 
Newmans  out  at  Cusheen,  and  rainy  years,  and  blights 
on  the  potatoes.  They're  nothing.  Oh,  what  a  brute 
I  am !  "  and  her  eyes,  that  had  flung  his  suggestion  off, 
lit  on  him  like  a  touch  on  the  arm  from  a  self-humbling 
friend,  "  and  you  going  there  to  help  them  against  all 
these  plagues — of  course  they  do  matter;  why,  they're 
the  only  ones  my  mother  and  I  ever  helped  them  with, 
either.  We  owed  it  them ;  they  gave  up  freely  a  lot  of 
things — things  they  could  live  on — things  that  had 
come  from  those — oh,  can't  vou  see?  '  She  seemed  to 
cry  out  upon  some  slowness  of  wit  in  him  that  would 
not  abridge  these  pangs  of  revelation. 

He  made  haste  to  say,  :  Yes,  the  Judas — some 
Judas,  with  silver,"  not  really  guessing  at  all,  nor  car- 
ing, except  to  smooth  out  of  her  forehead  three  lines 
that  had  creased  it  strainedly,  dragging  the  skin.  As 
to  this  mighty  secret,  why,  the  truth  about  other  peo- 
ple's family  secrets  was  surely  the  dullest  of  all  mice 
born  to  mountains.  But  she  was  auriferous  soil,  the 
true  gold  under  dust;  plaintive  or  cross  about  trifles, 
royally  genial  when  tried,  her  face,  that  would  scowl 
and  flinch  at  the  squeak  of  a  chair  on  the  floor,  had 
cleared  like  a  sky  when  she  had  spied  danger.  Full 
face  she  was  a  right  Hebe,  with  that  benign  roundness 
of  outline,  the  curve  of  the  chin  sweeping  round,  soft 
and  full,  from  ear  to  ear.  But  as  soon  as  she  half 
turned  to  profile,  the  Hebe  was  gone,  with  her  mere 


.102  THE  .MORNING'S  WAR 

fruit-like  plumpness;  now,  from  the  point  of  the  chin 
there  sprang  up  to  the  further  ear  a  curve  noble  and 
strong  as  that  line  of  sustinent,  continent  grace,  the 
outward  stoop  and  lift  of  a  vase  or  a  sailing-ship's 
bow  or  a  column's  capital.  Rounding  the  chin  it  drew 
in  to  a  slight  concave  in  passing  the  tip  of  the  mouth, 
and  then,  as  if  collecting  its  strength,  it  filled  and 
reached  puissantly  out  and  did  not  draw  back  till  it 
held  the  modeled  mass  of  the  brow  resting  supreme 
on  its  glorious  bracket ;  glorious  always,  awesomely 
queenly  at  times,  as  when  she  had  said,  "  Can't  you 
see?  "  and  had  seemed  to  retreat  into  twilight  thickets 
of  family  chagrin,  or  of  hurt  faith,  or  of  daughterly 
loyalty.  All  twilit  woods  are  enchanted  if  you  peer 
in  from  without.  This  one  held  menaces,  even,  in 
some  of  the  dim  vistas,  down  which  the  girl  receded 
at  times,  beyond  grasp  or  sight,  a  dryad  whose  oaks 
might  be  everything  to  her,  and  no  man  anything.  But 
now  she  was  clement  again. 

They  talked  plans — how  he  might  have  to  go  to 
Brabburn,  to  see  this  editor-body  of  Guy's;  Guy  would 
write  to  that  worthy ;  they  both  felt  sure — so  airy  is 
youth — that  he  must  be  a  worthy,  with  all  that  the 
word  implies  of  bleared  sight  and  numbed  tentacles. 
Were  it  so,  Browne  would  still  come  back  to  London 
before  he  went  to  Ireland — should  the  good  man  in  the 
North  indeed  desire  him  to.  Then  Browne  must 
certainly  come  to  Up-Felday  to  stay  for  a  night  at 
least.  Her  father  and  Guy,  she  said,  insisted.  June 
was  wholly  the  hostess  now;  she  was  affable  with  a 
will.     She  acted  as  if  for  a  wager,  or  rather  by  way  of 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  103 

argument  with  herself.  If  she  were  really  shaken  by 
something  in  this  man,  could  she  press  hospitality  on 
him  as  frankly  as  on  any  common  '  person  worth 
knowing  "  ?  No,  clearly.  And  so  she  would  prove  she 
was  whole. 


CHAPTER  IX 

"  She  is  not   fair  to  outward  view 
As  many  cities  be." 

BRABBURN  is  not  a  pretty  city;  nor  is  it  Arcady 
around  her.  When  steam  was  first  used  to  turn 
wheels,  a  rash  of  towns  broke  out  on  the  county's  clear 
moorland  skin.  The  rash  is  almost  confluent  now ;  all 
that  is  left  of  "  country  "  for  ten  miles  round  Brabburn 
is  patches  of  sooty  grass  going  bald  mangily,  spots  here 
and  spots  there,  some  scraggy  and  worried  remains 
of  thorn  hedges,  their  failing  powers  of  disjunction 
eked  out  with  barbed  wire,  and  some  wide  puddles  in 
which,  no  doubt,  cows  of  pastoral  idyll,  knee-deep 
among  water-lilies,  mused  on  the  hot  days  of  a  cen- 
tury ago;  now  they  are  silted  up  with  Swiss  milk  tins, 
old  pans,  and  barrel-hoops  sticking  half  out.  At  night 
all  the  main  aggregations  of  urban  light  are  tied  to 
one  another  by  unbroken  strings  of  lamps,  and  up  and 
down  these  slanting  lines  of  beaded  light  the  electric 
tramcars  flit,  rather  like  shooting  stars,  visiting  those 
larger  constellations. 

By  day  some  parts  of  the  earth  are  seen  to  have 
been  disemboweled  in  mining  for  coal,  and  part  of  the 
entrails  left  to  lie  on  the  body's  outside  in  a  mess  that 
has  caked  hard  and  blackish ;  the  rain  that  ran  down 
the  sides  of  these  heaps,  as  Browne  neared  Brabburn, 
made  gullies  or  furrows  of  paler  dirt-color,  much  as 

104 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  10.5 

sweat  does  on  the  face  of  a  sweep.  For  the  last  four 
miles  the  train  ran  level  over  low  roofs,  a  mean  sea 
of  ridged  ripples  of  slate.  Peering  down  into  the 
troughs  between  these  he  could  spy  now  and  then, 
when  the  wind  tore  a  hole  in  their  lids  of  damp  smoke, 
a  girl  with  a  shawl  on  her  head,  or  some  whirled  rag 
of  a  child,  jug  in  hand,  holding  back  hard  while  the 
storm  blew  her  clothes  before  her  over  a  shining  wet 
pavement.  Clothes-lines,  now  empty  and  whipping  the 
air,  crossed  most  of  these  streets,  proclaiming  that  in 
unconquerable  minds  cleanliness  held  desperately  out 
against  the  whole  investing  league  of  sodden  air,  sun- 
lessness  and  hanging  reek.  "  Many  the  wondrous 
things,  but  the  most  wondrous  is  man."  Browne, 
compassionate  but  not  depressed,  hummed  the  old 
descant  of  happy  surprise  that  is  fresh  as  often  as 
spring,  and  young' again  whenever  any  one  who  has 
read  it  feels  the  stir  of  his  own  youth. 

At  the  train's  last  stop,  two  miles  before  Brabburn, 
the  door  flew  instantly  open,  and  through  this  sluice 
there  surged  into  the  carriage,  with  jubilant  howls  of 
"  Play  up,  Brabburn!  "  and  "  Good  old  City!  "  a  spate 
of  pasty  adolescence.  They  seemed  to  move  not  by 
separate  personal  impulse;  rather,  to  be  molecular 
units  of  tumbled  froth  in  some  turbid  irruption  of  a 
liquid  seeking  lower  levels.  All  wore  the  same  foot- 
ball favor;  their  caps  were  cocked  alike;  they  all 
smoked  cigarettes,  and  did  it  with  the  same  technique ; 
when  the  first  ecstasy  of  capture  was  spent,  each 
seemed  to  let  fall  a  slackened,  but  not  weakly-made, 
lower  lip  till  there  spilt  over  its  edge,  like  a  child's 


106  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

wilfully  unmastered  saliva,  a  dribble  of  gross,  but  not 
lascivious  expletion,  decking  the  tale  of  how  Brabburn 
City  ought  to  have  won,  and  how  gracelessly  Bowton 
had  beaten  them,  how  venal  the  referee's  judgments 
("Talk  aboul  whistlin'!"  "Bloody  tram-driver!") 
had  proved  him,  how  tragically  Brabburn's  paladin, 
1 1  itch,  had  been  out  of  form. 

"  Itch,"  one  of  them  suddenly  turned  to  Aubrey, 
"  'e's  one  o'  them  fast  lads,  an'  last  week  'e  bashed  'is 
girl  an'  got  a  week  an'  only  come  out  at  eight  this 
mornin'.  The  seven  nights  on  the  boards  done  'im  no 
good."  He  spoke  as  if  Browne  and  he  had  been  long 
acquainted.  And  then  Browne  saw  a  thing  he  had 
missed — that  none  of  these  youths  knew  the  rest  five 
minutes  ago,  any  more  than  he  did.  He  had  not  heard 
in  the  South  this  unhampered  talk,  with  its  instant 
assumptions  of  some  universal  interests  in  life,  and 
also  of  every  one's  fitness  to  be  accosted  at  sight  as  at 
least  a  probationary  comrade. 

Censure  passed  on  from  Bowton's  players  to  Bow- 
ton's  friends  in  the  crowd.  "  Rough  devils,  they  Bow- 
ton  fellies !  "  said  one  critic,  looking  down  as  from 
Versailles  on  an  impolite  world. 

"  'Ear  'em  taak,  too !  '  said  another.  "  Gawd 
amighty,  it's  bleedin'  awful." 

A  chorus  of  "Ah's  "  assented.  Somebody  went  one 
better.  "  Taak  abaht  Bowton!'  he  said.  "  Owd- 
ham's  place  fer  roughyeds.  I  see  last  train  out,  fer 
Owdham  way,  Saturday  neet.  One  chap  come  to 
bookin'-office  window.  '  Gie's  a  ticket,'  'e  says. 
1  Wheer     fer?'     says     clerk.       '  Whoam,'     says     'e. 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  107 

'  Wheer's  'ome?'  says  clerk.  '  What  th'  'ell's  that  to 
thee?  '  says  t'  roughyed.  '  Righto!  '  says  clerk,  '  'ere's 
tha  ticket.     I  can  see  thee's  fra  Owdham.' 

All  laughed,  saluting  a  truth.  Browne  was  en- 
chanted;  the  prospect  was  widening;  new  social  land- 
scape, plane  behind  plane  of  unaffected  manners, 
opened  out  into  the  far  distance.  "  Owdham's  aal 
reet,"  another  went  on,  "  but  was  th'  ever  at  Blackston? 
They  don't  mak'  folk  at  aal — not  to  caal  whole  folk — 
at  Blackston.     Nobbut  offal  an'  boilin'  pieces." 

The  talk  passed  to  whippets,  wild-fowling,  rlower- 
shows,  contests  between  brass  bands.  Browne  saw 
another  thing  then;  under  their  uniform  of  manner 
and  outward  habit  they  could  be  furiously  diverse. 
Every  one  swore,  contradicted,  was  bursting  to  back 
some  preference  of  his  own.  And  then  again  they 
would  come  together,  naively,  in  some  sudden  unison 
of  gusto.  A  youth  took  out  of  the  crown  of  his  hat 
a  single  bloom  of  some  uncommon  lily;  he  handed 
it  round.  The  connoisseurs  wagged  silent  heads. 
"  There's  a  lot  of  work  in  them  petals,"  the  owner 
claimed,  and  the  others  said  "  Ah!  "  allowing  to  Na- 
ture's fret-saw  the  precious  forced  praise  of  experts, 
not  courtiers.  Then,  in  the  harshest,  unsentimental 
way,  as  if  he  were  cursing  a  sudden  twinge  of  pain  in 
his  stomach,  another  youth  interjected : — "  Eh,  but  a' 
wish  March  throstles  'ud  start  whistlin' !  "  and.  once 
more,  all  said  assentively,  "  Ah !  " 

Browne  shivered  with  pleasure.  Northern  England 
was  opening  before  him — the  mills  amid  heather;  the 
soot  on  peat-moss  and  bracken ;  the  droves  of  "  hands  ': 


108  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

herded  to  work  and  back  with  whistle  and  hooter; 
rocks  of  the  prime  sticking  out  in  streets  of  slums  at 
the  foot  of  high  fells,  where  the  townspeople  seem  at 
first  like  so  many  house-sparrows  twittering  samely 
from  urban  eaves,  but  break  now  and  then  into  speech 
that  thrills  like  the  unexpected  call  of  a  grouse;  the 
sane  earthen  humor  and  harsh  pith  of  mind :  the  so- 
ciable rudeness. 

Brabburn;  the  train  stopped;  here,  too,  were  deli- 
cious differences.     The  cabs  were  of  the  dark  ages. 
Browne's  hansom,  by  two  modes  of  jolting,  reported 
by  turns  two  kinds  of  stone  setts,  the  one  small,  rough, 
iron-hard,  the  other  large,  softer,  and  worn  into  holes 
that    must  be  like  small  fonts;   like    fonts,  too,  these 
cavities  seemed  to  have  been  treasured.     Yet  this  was 
a  city  of  wealth,  spirit,  great  history,  sometimes  of 
national  leadership.     Clearly  it  had  its  own  notions 
of  what  was  worth  having.     Good  place!     Browne 
was  prepared  to  be  kind  to  it.     After  all,  why  should 
not  some  good  come  out  of  the  provinces?     Browne, 
alone  with  his  glee  in  the  lightless  cab,  made  an  ex- 
ultant grimace.     His  thoughts  ran  ahead ;  they  probed 
for  other  surprises  that  might  come.     He  was  going 
now  to  visit  the  Northerners  editor,  Mullivant.    Mul- 
livant  might  be  uncommon?    Not  very  likely,  though. 
An  editor — that  meant  banality.     No,  it  was  hopeless. 
Aubrey  had  never  seen  the  Northerner,  but  he  per- 
ceived that  it  was  hopeless.     Still,  a  provincial  editor 
might  have  a  house  good  to  wake  up  in;  a  lawn  to 
look  out  on,  red  with  the  night's  fall  of  beech  leaves, 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  109 

perhaps;  a  long  view,  possibly,  up  to  dim  Pennine 
Hills. 

Revolving  these  things  he  was  dropped  on  a  grudged 
ledge  of  footpath  under  a  cliff  of  bald  brick.  Was  the 
cabman  sure?  They  had  not  left  the  station  three 
minutes.  Yes,  that  there  was  Middleton  House,  the 
driver  said,  with  a  temperate  note  of  contempt.  White 
faces,  niched  in  dark  shawls,  flitted  in  and  out  at  the 
door,  each  of  their  owners  adding  an  infinitesimal  in- 
crement of  polish  to  the  varnished  dirt-stain  at  elbow 
level  on  the  yellow  brick.  One  of  them  passed  to  the 
cabman,  now  paid  and  swinging  up  to  his  box,  an 
audible  jibe  at  the  new  castaway  on  such  rocks  as  a 
Brabburn  tenement  block.  The  cabman's  wit  reacted 
with  ribald  fertility;  Browne  enjoyed  it  while  climbing 
the  three  pair  of  stairs,  half  in  and  half  out  of  the 
building,  to  Mullivant's  rooms.  No,  Mr.  Mullivant 
wasn't  in  yet,  said  a  middle-aged  slattern,  who  lived 
in  the  tenement  next  his  and  said  that  she  "  did  "  for 
him  ;  she  had  come  with  the  key  when  Browne  knocked. 
She  let  him  in,  first  making  sure  that  he  was  licensed 
to  come,  lighted  the  lamp,  introduced  him  with  a  ges- 
ture to  the  general  contents  of  the  interior  and  left 
him. 

Browne  looked  round,  charmed.  Life  never  failed; 
its  surprises  bettered  your  hopes  of  its  infinite  vivacity. 
The  room  was  big  and  was  all  book-lined,  except 
where  Samuel  Palmer's  tiny  etching  of  Milton's  lark 
rising  at  dawn  looked  fair  as  the  one  star  in  a  sky.  A 
terrier,  curled  up  on  the  hearth  like  a  whiting  cooked, 
glanced  up  out  of  sleep,  whined  out  a  loud  yawn  and 


110  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

re-imbedded  its  head  in  its  tail,  disgusted  that  this  was 
not  Mullivant.  There  were  two  tables  and  three 
chairs.  What  else  the  room  held  looked  as  if  it  were 
there  because  it  had  not  been  noticed.  In  a  brown 
Delft  jar  in  one  corner  a  parched  sheaf  of  bulrushes 
rustled  dry  in  the  draughts  that  soughed  under  the 
door  and  puffed  up  the  carpet  in  traveling  patches  of 
convexity  as  they  traversed  the  floor. 

Browne  snuffed  up  the  scent  of  a  mind  that  took  its 
own  way  absorbedly.  There  were  books  of  price — the 
Second  Folio,  Keats  in  first  editions,  the  Vicar  of 
Wakefield  the  same,  a  Baskerville  Virgil — and  there 
was  that  one  heaven's  window  of  a  print,  monoga- 
mously  loved,  and  there  was  the  shocking  carpet  undu- 
lating unimpeded;  a  wet  gust  whipped  the  panes,  the 
curtains  bellied,  the  terrier  rose  as  if  levered  up  by  the 
blast,  revolved  twice  on  his  basic  area,  still  in  the  shape 
of  a  couchant  capital  C,  and  again,  on  a  lull,  collapsed 
into  unquiet  sleep;  the  bulrushes  huddled  and  shud- 
dered with  small,  sere  crepitations.  Mullivant  must 
have  put  them  there  five  or  ten  years  ago.  Oh,  happy 
absence  of  mind !  Strung  up  to  his  pitch  of  to-day, 
Browne  could  see  what  success  in  life  meant — to  be 
taken  up,  blood,  brain  and  heart,  the  whole  man,  into 
some  passion  as  strong  as  lust,  only  good,  that  will  use 
you  up  in  a  tranced  unawareness  of  anything  else  as 
being  worth  while. 

Soon  Mullivant  came,  not  as  people  come  into  rooms 
now,  but  as  they  did  in  the  first  tale  of  adventure  that 
your  father  told  you,  your  thrilled  expectancy  robing 
them.      He   was    forty-three;    he    was    six    feet   tall; 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  111 

though  lean,  he  weighed  thirteen  stone;  his  head  thrust 
and  peered  a  little,  as  if  his  sight  were  shortening. 
The  body's  air  of  decayed  magnificence  was  confirmed 
by  its  clothes,  which  were  of  fine  stuff,  finely  cut  in  a 
fashion  dead  for  several  years;  coat  and  collar  pro- 
claimed the  date  of  their  owner's  last  note  of  what 
other  men  wore.  His  face  at  first  nearly  appalled; 
the  beetling  of  his  forehead  merged  on  menace;  the 
quite  black  eyes  questioned  you  grimly,  keeping  you  off 
meanwhile  as  with  pitchforks ;  and  a  strong,  ugly  nose 
— the  one  ugly  feature — and  mighty  chin  contributed 
liberally  to  the  sum  of  awesomeness.  Then,  of  a 
sudden,  all  the  awesomeness  broke  down.  Some  comic 
vision,  evoked  by  a  phrase  in  their  greetings,  tickled 
this  dragon;  his  head  flung  back  with  a  roar  of  laugh- 
ter like  an  enormous  boy's;  the  whole  redoubtable 
enigma  of  the  face  was  solved  into  large,  genial  ele- 
ments— huge  good-will ;  huge  simplicity ;  some  shy- 
ness, not  egoistic,  but  humble;  eager  respect,  like  a 
child's,  for  the  unpacked  contents  of  the  next  moment 
or  of  a  new  friend. 

They  supped  at  a  space  cleared  of  books,  talking, 
of  course,  about  Oxford  at  first,  as  both  had  been 
there;  and,  as  Browne  had  been  there  but  the  other 
day,  he  talked  about  the  men  of  genius  in  the  place, 
his  good  friends,  the  sinewy  minds  of  junior  dons  and 
the  broad  wings  of  the  last  moment's  poets.  Mulli- 
vant  listened  and  liked  it :  these  ardors — so  his  look 
said — ought  to  go  on ;  and  Browne  saw,  in  Mullivant's 
mirroring  eye  and  sneerless  laugh,  the  young  Theban 
eagles  fall  on  their  feet,  perhaps  in  the  Treasury,  and 


112  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

no  harm  done,  or  build  their  eyries,  like  temple-haunt- 
ing martlets,  amid  the  Virginia  creepers  of  rectories. 
The  meat,  cooked  by  the  slattern  you  heard  of,  was 
not  distinguishably  mutton  or  beef,  but  just  cooked 
meat,  something  generic,  that  might  have  been  the  un- 
flavored  basis  of  all  the  kindly  individual  meats  of 
the  earth.  But  both  the  eaters  had  harvesters'  vitals, 
and  there  was  good  wine,  dating  back  like  Mullivant's 
coat,  and  talk  flowed  with  it. 

'You've  written  before? ':  Mullivant  asked  when 
they  had  made  friends  and  slowly  fetched  round  to 
business,  with  both  pipes  alight. 

Browne's  face  must  have  grown  a  little  expressive 
at  this.  Had  his  firstling,  his  novel,  not  penetrated 
these  wilds? 

"  Oh,  your  yarn?  "  Mullivant  laughed — a  kind  and 
shy  minor  laugh  that  he  had;  it  said  and  did  many 
things  for  him — met  the  shyness  or  fumbling  of  other 
people  halfway  and  comprehended  all  sorts  of  things 
and  made  all  kinds  of  allowances.  "  Yes;  most  jolly. 
I  liked  your  cheek  in  spinning  it  out  of  high  spirits, 
like  that,  without  any  observation  behind  'em.  All 
right  for  once,  you  know;  only — "  Again  the  small 
laugh  let  the  point  in  unwoundingly.  "  Do  write  an- 
other, some  day,  about  real  people.  But  what  I  was 
meaning  was  stuff  in  our  line." 

Hurriedly  Browne  digested  the  note  on  his  master- 
piece. Yes,  that  was  what  he  had  tried  to  keep  from 
himself  when  people  had  praised  it  for  what  it  was  not 
— that  it  was  really  no  novel  at  all ;  he  had  just  let  fly, 
in  the  joy  of  his  youth,  and  bluffed  them.     Praise 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  113 

tasted  good,  and  yet  it  was  better  to  have  this  fellow- 
workman's  undeceived  eye  seeing  how  little  one  came 
to,  so  far. 

"Articles,  essays,  you  know?"  Mullivant  asked. 
"You've  brought  something?  Good.  Read — do  you 
mind?    I'll  not  look  at  you." 

What  Browne  now  read  out  he  had  written  in  Lon- 
don last  night.  Mullivant's  invitation  had  asked  for 
"  specimens  "  of  his  handiwork.  Browne,  surveying 
his  own  past  magnoperations,  and  musing  on  what 
these  newspapers  were,  had  found  in  his  desk  nothing 
so  unclean  and  common  that  it  could  be  trusted  to  tell 
with  an  editor.  Stooping  to  conquer,  he  took  a  trite 
theme  of  the  day,  and,  half  ashamed  and  half  gleeful, 
penned  on  the  spot  some  sagacious  remarks  not  too 
searching,  he  hoped,  for  "  the  general  reader's  "  wits, 
nor  too  nicely  minted  for  that  oaf's  sense  of  form.  The 
stuff  was  certainly  not  quite,  quite — so  he  felt  while  he 
blotted  the  last  page;  still,  some  kinds  of  jeweler's 
work  could  only  be  done  in  alloys :  with  an  inward  sigh 
he  owned  it. 

He  now  recited  this  goodly  creation,  sitting,  to  do 
it,  in  the  full  light  of  the  shaded  lamp.  Mullivant, 
sunk  in  an  arm-chair,  in  shadow,  his  face  to  the  fire, 
was  perfectly  still  for  the  first  few  minutes.  He  then 
shifted  uneasily,  like  the  terrier  in  the  draught.  Then 
he  quiesced  again,  for  a  shorter  time,  but  his  next 
movement  verged  on  convulsion,  the  springs  of  his 
chair  squeaking  abruptly,  as  if  all  the  thirteen  stone 
had  fallen  back  on  them  together,  after  writhing  or 
bounding  up   two  or  three   inches   in  uncontrollable 


1U  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

agony.  Browne  read  on,  but  wished  he  were  out  of 
the  lamplight.  Once,  at  a  paragraph's  end,  he  saw  the 
firelit  silhouette  of  Mullivant's  face  staring  at  a  fixed 
point  high  on  the  wall  as  though  he  had  toothache  and 
wanted  to  mesmerize  himself  into  apathy.  Again,  at 
some  phrase  in  which  Browne  hoped  he  had  caught  the 
tone  of  the  trade,  the  audience  let  out  a  grunt  of  dis- 
relish, not  loud  but  deep.  Browne  shirked  nothing 
of  what  he  had  brought  on  himself.  It  was  much.  He 
felt  that  a  whole  world  was  gaping  at  him,  posed  there 
in  limelight  to  show  off  his  emptiness. 

At  last  silence  fell ;  it  lasted  some  moments,  with 
Mullivant  still  collapsed  in  his  chair,  the  leaping  light 
of  tiny  flames  dappling  his  crag  of  a  face,  and  Browne 
drawn  back  from  the  lamp,  for  darkness  to  cover  him. 
Speech  had  to  come,  soon  or  late.  It  came  late.  As 
Mullivant's  face  turned  at  length,  a  coal  fell  in  and 
threw  up  a  bigger  flame,  and  Browne  could  see,  with 
poignant  gratitude,  the  extraordinary  ruthfulness  of 
his  eyes.  He  began,  "  My  dear  boy,"  with  a  kind  of 
wrathful  affection,  as  if  a  visitation  endured  together 
had  ripened  friendship  swiftly,  "  don't  let  me  ever  see 
you  do  that  again." 

The  patient  muttered  contritely ;  he  "  feared  he  had 
not  got  the  tone  " — he  "  had  read  newspapers  too 
little." 

Mullivant  groaned.  'Too  little!  Within  one  half- 
hour  you've  said  that  something  or  other  advanced  by 
leaps  and  bounds,  and  something  else  should  be  more 
honored  in  the  breach  than  the  observance,  that  some 
one  was  out  of  touch  with  the  age  and  somebody  not  in 


THE  MORNINGS  WAR  115 

contact  with  vital  realities.  A's  taste  was  '  execrable,' 
and  B's  satire  '  scathing.'  and  C's  public  virtue  a  '  van- 
ishing point,'  and  D's  judgment  '  conspicuous  by  its 
absence.'  And  you  think  you  don't  read  the  papers!  ' 
He  worked  himself  up  to  a  frenzy  of  tender  brutality, 
pulling  and  throwing  about  the  misfitting  vesture  of 
ready-made  words  in  which  Browne  had  dressed  him- 
self, thinking,  poor  wretch,  to  have  the  right  uniform. 
Mullivant  first  stripped  away  the  re-dyed  old  feathers 
of  speech,  the  "  mute,  inglorious  Miltons,"  the 
"  Frankenstein's  monsters,"  the  "  Pyrrhic  victories," 
the  "  Sisyphean  labors,"  the  "  Homeric  laughter." 
"  What  d'you  want  with  calico  flowers  from  dust- 
holes?  "  he  cried,  as  he  stamped  on  them.  "  '  French 
esprit/  too,  good  Lord !  and  '  German  thoroughness,' 
and  '  Parthian  darts,'  and  '  Chinese  stagnation.'  Why, 
it's  an  international  exhibition  of  used  fireworks." 
Then  he  ripped  up  the  seams,  or  what  should  have 
been  seams,  the  pastings  and  tackings  together  with 
sham-naive  "  ands  "  and  "  fors,"  and  "  as  regards  " 
and  "in  relation  to";  and,  this  done,  he  visited  the 
fundamental  imbecilities  of  structure,  the  way  that 
clause  knocked  down  clause  and  page  unsaid  page  and 
the  whole  came  to  nothing. 

Browne  felt  naked,  and  yet,  strangely,  he  did  not 
mind  now.  There  was  a  saving  kindness,  almost  a 
praise,  in  the  very  way  the  stripping  was  done.  It 
seemed  to  imply  that  he  was  able  to  afford  it;  that 
clothes  were  not  the  whole  of  him;  that,  these  gone, 
there  would  be  something  left  which  could  see  what 
rubbish  was  and  eschew  it.     In  the  half-light  that  is 


116  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

good  for  confidences  each  could  see  that  the  other  was 
sorry  and  friendly,  the  battered  trash  uniting  him  who 
had  made  to  him  who  had  rent  it. 

"  Of  course,  if  you  want  to  be  liked,"  said  Mulli- 
vant,  tranquilly  now,  "  you  should  write  like  that,  just. 
People  love  it.  It's  merely  a  fad  not  to  give  it  'em. 
Sport,  though — to  make  'em  read  just  what  they  hate." 

"  '  How  if  'a  will  not  stand  '?  "  Browne  delightedly 
quoted. 

"  Make  him.  Use  your  wit  till  people  will  take  it 
from  you  that  they're  fools  almost  as  well  as  they  take 
it  from  lickspittles  that  they're  all  Solons.  They'll 
want  lies  and  then  you  must  sharpen  and  sharpen  pre- 
cision till  it  will  tickle  like  irony.  Or  they'll  want 
whooping  and  brag,  and  then  you  must  still  down  your 
quietness  till,  with  the  blether  that's  going  on  all  round, 
it  tells  like  an  epigram."  Mullivant  pulled  up,  some- 
what abashed;  was  he  giving  a  lecture? 

"  They  do  stand  it  ?  "  Browne  asked,  wondering. 

Mullivant  made  a  grimace.  "  Of  course,  trash  must 
pay  best,  for  a  while  yet — the  whole  of  our  time,  no 
doubt.  And  of  course  we  have  owners  to  feed,  and 
wolves  to  repel  from  several  large,  green  doors  in 
Mayfair." 

"  I  know."  Browne  had  seen  Guy  gracefully 
browsing  on  three-sixteenths  of  what  was  left  over 
after  the  current  expenses  of  Mullivant's  honor  had 
been  subtracted  from  current  profits  on  Mullivant's 

wits. 

That  was  all  right,  for  Mullivant.  He  was  well 
enough  pleased  that  his  fellow-owners — his  own  share 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  117 

was  a  single  sixteenth — should  eat  up  their  twenty 
thousand  pounds  a  year  in  peace,  a  good  long  way  off, 
and  leave  him  and  a  friend  to  their  whim  of  keeping 
the  paper  decent.  His  life  in  a  slum  was  quite  cheap, 
as  well  as  delightful.  But  finance  was  not  to  be  talked 
about  with  this  boy.  Their  talk  ran  again  on  the  sport 
of  palming  coherence  and  continence  off  on  customers 
who  had  come  out  to  buy  rant  or  slops — "  ringing  a 
pig's  nose,  all  over  again,  every  morning,  to  drag  him 
along,  and  making  him  pay  a  penny  a  day  for  the 
ring,"  Mullivant  called  it,  but  could  not  disguise  his 
love  of  the  pig — "  a  most  dear  beast  he  is,  really — 
bound  to  turn  out  a  god  if  we  don't  bedevil  him 
now." 

Then  Mullivant  really  let  himself  go;  his  talk,  as  he 
warmed,  gained  a  headlong  brilliancy;  gleaming  and 
turbid,  it  tumbled  along  in  flood,  with  audacious 
ellipses,  leaps  from  point  to  point,  rapid  assumptions 
that  this  or  that  need  not  be  labored,  that  compre- 
hension was  waiting,  ready,  in  Browne's  mind,  needing 
only  a  hail.  And — good  miracle  of  mental  comrade- 
ship— waiting  it  was ;  the  taxed  wits  in  Browne  girt 
themselves  up  to  keep  pace,  and  did  it;  they  rose  to 
it,  even  rose  off  the  known  ground  and  looked  around 
over  new,  exciting  expanses  with  eyes  that  found  they 
could  transcend  old  view-limiting  hills.  The  firelight 
flickered  lower  and  mellower,  quickening  the  adventur- 
ing spirit.  Browne's  made  long  voyages.  Once,  at  a 
pause,  he  noticed  the  storm  was  over  outside.  He 
looked  at  the  clock.  Three  hours  had  passed,  as 
though  in  climbing  a  mountain.    He  said  so. 


118  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

"  You  care  about  mountains?  Come  for  a  walk  in 
the  Pennine  to-morrow,"  said  Mullivant. 

"  Rather." 

"  Bruntwood  is  coming,"  Mullivant  said  as  he  lit 
his  guest  bedward.  "  You  ought  to  know  Brunt- 
wood." 

"  Your  business  manager,  didn't  you  say?  ': 

"  Yes,  it's  he  runs  the  paper,  really." 


CHAPTER  X 

"A  mind 
That  nobleness  made  simple  as  a  fire." 

W.  B.  Yeats. 

IN  the  dead  waste  and  middle  of  the  night  some 
madman  in  wooden  shoes  came  stamping  along 
the  street  and  knocked  furiously  at  every  door.  So  it 
seemed  to  Browne  at  his  own  violent  awakening.  Ten 
minutes'  silence  ensued.  Nobody  seemed  to  resent  the 
outrage.  Then  two  more  wooden  shoes  could  be 
heard  shuffling  out  of  a  house  and  pegging  away  down 
the  street ;  others  issued  at  lessening  intervals  until  the 
darkness,  now  blenching,  dinned  with  the  hammering, 
tapping  and  slithering  of  wood  on  stone;  the  dots  of 
sound,  running  together,  became  a  line  and  a  thick 
one.  Then  a  turn  came;  the  din  slackened,  the  dots 
were  separable  again.  And  then,  when  all  seemed  to 
be  subsiding  there  burst  forth  the  strangest  jangle 
of  cacophonies,  a  monstrous  jostle  of  steam-blown 
whistles,  hooters,  drones,  sirens,  buzzers,  some  a  few 
hundreds  yards  off,  others  a  mile  or  two,  all  of  them 
shrilling,  howling,  or  desperately  holding  out  one  note, 
as  if  armadas  of  sinking  ships  were  bellowing  for  help 
in  a  fog. 

Browne,  sleepy  and  rueful,  still  had  to  laugh.  It 
seemed  like  some  vast  and  primitive  jest,  a  gigantic 
skit  on  Oxford's  bird-like  clangor  of  morning  bells. 

119 


120  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

Then,  still  and  small  through  the  uproar,  a  clock 
struck,  and  one  by  one  the  dissonant  choristers  threw 
up  their  parts,  some  with  the  unashamed  bathos  of  a 
note  of  deflation,  some  with  a  strident  last  snort  flung 
out  ferociously  on  the  aching  air;  one,  that  had  not 
struck  in  till  the  prime  of  discord  was  past,  completed 
its  truculent  cadence  as  a  solo.  Two  or  three  last  pairs 
of  clogs  were  heard  fleeing  down  the  street,  as  from 
some  pursuant  wrath,  and,  next  thing  that  he  knew, 
Browne  was  once  more  being  awakened,  this  time  by 
Mullivant's  rap  on  his  door. 

Day  was  come,  blank  and  chill.  Behind  the  squat 
houses,  and  ten  times  as  high,  there  bulked  rectangular 
frameworks  looking  like  travesties  of  festal  palaces, 
all  window,  with  every  pane  ablaze  in  each  long  tier  of 
their  eight  or  nine  piled  stories.  Breakfast  done  the 
two  walked  to  the  station;  Bruntwood  would  meet 
them  there.  As  they  walked  Mullivant  solved  for 
Aubrey  the  riddle  set  him  at  dawn,  explained  the 
"  knocker-up's "  trade  and  the  separate  voice  with 
which  each  mill  or  yard  gave  its  own  army  the  word 
to  fall  in. 

"  Another  marvel  of  ours — here ! '  Over  the  side 
of  a  bridge  Mullivant  showed  a  little  river  running 
thirty  feet  lower,  between  house  walls,  and  still  break- 
ing over  the  rock  of  its  bed  as  it  had  done  when  a 
trout-stream.  But  it  was  opaque  and  stank,  and  it  was 
light  blue.     Aubrey  stared. 

"  Orange  to-morrow,  perhaps,"  said  Mullivant. 
"  Yesterday,  mauve.  It's  too  often  mauve.  Poor 
color,  mauve." 


THE  MORNINGS  WAR  121 

"  Does  nobody  murmur?  "  Browne  asked. 

"At  all  the  mauve?" 

"And  the  stink?" 

"  The  old  grumbler,  the  Northerner,  does.  It's 
illegal,  of  course.  But  half  the  bench  pollute  rivers 
themselves.  So  when  a  friend  poisons  all  the  fish  in  a 
stream,  or  kills  a  few  children  with  typhoid,  they  fine 
him  a  shilling  and  sneer  at  the  prosecutor.  Bruntwood 
noticed  the  game  and  gave  me  no  rest  till  we  set  on  the 
rogues." 

"Successfully?" 

Mullivant  waved  a  hand  towards  the  azure  filth. 
"  Si  monimentum  quaeris  " — he  laughed.  "  Still,  it 
had  some  effect.  It  got  Bruntwood  blackballed  at 
Rose's,  a  club  here." 

That  loitering  almost  lost  them  the  train.  It  was 
crowded.  Brabburn  Races  had  ended  last  night  and 
bookmakers,  tipsters,  three-card  men  and  more  direct 
thieves  were  homing  to  London  and  Birmingham. 
Browne  and  Mullivant  parted,  each  to  jump  in  where 
he  could;  they  would  rejoin  at  Howden,  the  moorland 
station  for  which  they  were  bound;  no  doubt  they 
would  meet  Bruntwood  there. 

Browne  found  he  had  plumped  into  the  thick  of  a 
debate.  His  entry  reduced  its  heat  for  one  moment, 
like  a  spoon  plunged  into  boiling  water;  the  last  comer 
into  a  full  compartment  seems  to  be,  by  some  law  of 
our  nature,  an  alien  and  suspect,  until  by  lapse  of  time 
and  the  silent  operations  of  the  soul  he  becomes  in- 
sensibly a  brother-in-arms  against  any  yet  later  en- 
trant.    But  any  warmth   lost  was   restored   swiftly. 


122  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

Those  were  the  happy  first  weeks  of  the  Boer  War,  so 
long  desired,  so  ardently  wooed;  the  spirited  part  of 
the  press  was  firing  our  hearts  with  daily  assurances, 
dear  to  the  non-combatant  heart,  that  the  fight  was 
between  heroes  and  ogres,  and  that  the  ogres  had  ugly, 
flat-footed  wives  and  ill-kept  infants.  Browne  soon 
perceived  that  four  or  five  pillars  of  sport  from  Lon- 
don, and  two  or  three  Northern  workmen,  had  just 
been  fused  into  one  substance  by  some  effective  story 
of  Boer  barbarity.  At  first  the  only  insoluble  object 
that  could  be  seen  was  a  little  weasel-like  man  with 
feet  dangling  well  clear  of  the  floor,  a  hard-bitten 
sticker  to  proof,  with  the  wizened  calm  and  hus- 
banded asperity  found  in  some  disputants  long  inured 
to  man's  usage  of  strictly  logical  persons. 

A  clearly  unfinished  rebuke  to  this  slave  of  reason 
was  now  resumed  by  a  London  "  bookie,"  a  big,  red, 
personable  varlet,  over-dressed,  vast-necked  and  triple- 
chinned,  with  a  belly  that  he  swaggered  like  a  medal, 
and  bibulous  eyes,  from  which  the  aqueous  part  of 
his  liquor  seemed  to  lip  uncontainably  over  the  lower 
lids.  '  Strikes  me"  he  said,  "  yer  little  better'n  a 
try  tor." 

"Do  it?"  said  the  weasel.  "Well,  it  ain't  the 
point." 

"  Oh,  yn't  it?  "  sneered  the  other. 

'  Point  is,"  the  drastic  thinker  rejoined,  "  is  it  right? 

Jus'  you  keep  to  that.    Is  this  war  right  ?    Now  then !  " 

:  Ark  at   'im !  "  the  bookie  appealed  to  men  and 

gods.        'Is  it  rahyt?'  'e  says.     Is  'is  ahn  country 

rahyt?':      Sympathetic  horror  was  legible  on  several 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  123 

faces.  Inspired  by  so  much  backing  the  big  man 
turned  abruptly  on  the  little  one  and  asked  him  in 
mock-confidential  tones,  as  if  parched  with  genuine 
thirst  for  information — "  'Ere,  mite,  'o\v  much  a  week 
d'yer  git  fer  syin'  that?  " 

"  Eh,  but  that's  it,"  put  in  a  virtuous-looking  work- 
man, with  conviction,  raising  his  eyes  from  a  paper 
in  which  the  upper  half  of  the  open  page  seemed  to 
be  one  tall  stack  of  printed  outcries. 

"An'  'oo  pyes  'im?"  the  bookmaker's  clerk  sup- 
ported his  principal. 

The  little  man  clearly  felt  lonely.  Still,  all  he  would 
yield  to  unreason  was  to  fall  back  on  a  general  aspira- 
tion which  fools  might  mistake,  if  they  chose,  for 
something  other  than  a  crusher  to  themselves.  '  Well, 
God  defend  the  right,"  he  said;  "  that's  all  I  say." 

The  bookie  almost  shrieked,  "  Didn'  I  sye  'e  was  a 
trytor?    Garn!     Prow-Bower!" 

It  was  clear  to  public  opinion,  thus  capably  led, 
that  the  little  man  had  established  the  fact  of  his 
villainy.  "  Wants  'is  'ead  knocked  orf,"  said  a  third 
sporting  expert,  in  a  heavy  fur  coat  and  fantastically 
discolored  linen,  speaking  apparently  in  soliloquy. 

"  Arskin'  fer  it !  "  said  a  fourth. 

"  Ow,  choke  'im,  fer  Chrahyst's  sike !  "  said  a  fifth. 

It  looked  as  if  there  might  be  a  mobbing.  The  little 
man  sat  next  but  one  to  a  window.  Between  it  and 
him  sat  a  man  in  a  Norfolk  jacket.  He  was  as  tall  and 
as  broad  as  the  big  bookie,  but  not  at  all  so  deep  below 
the  waist;  his  face  had  an  expression  of  slowly-travel- 
ing   but    surely    arriving    good-sense    which    made 


124       tup:  mornings  war 

Browne,  now  that  he  noticed  its  wearer,  think  of  the 
Suffolk  Punch  breed  of  cart-horse  and  want  to  stroke 
him  gently  on  his  roughly-t weeded  shoulder  and  say, 
"  Good  horse,  Dobbin,"  feeling  sure  that  to  kick  or 
bite  was  not  in  him.  For  some  time  he  had  been  de- 
taching himself  by  degrees  from  the  study  of  a  large- 
scale  map  open  on  his  knees  and  taking  in  the  drift 
of  the  debate;  and  now,  just  when  it  promised  to  be- 
come physical,  he  touched  the  menaced  minority  man 
on  the  arm,  heaved  a  gradual  head  towards  the  win- 
dow, and  said,  in  a  tone  at  once  phlegmatic  and  casual, 
"  Mind  changing  places  with  me?    Bit  of  a  draught." 

The  small  man  had  complied  before  he  knew 
whether  he  was  doing  a  good  turn  or  getting  one. 
And  somehow  the  change  seemed  to  quench  all  hope 
of  a  scuffle.  It  put  the  little  man  strangely  far  out  of 
reach.  Beyond  those  puissant  tweed  thighs  he  was 
lodged  as  if  at  the  inner  extremity  of  a  cave. 

The  good  cause  had  undergone  a  setback.  While 
the  intervener  re-immersed  himself  in  his  map  the 
patriot  chief  discreetly  ascended  from  the  particular 
to  the  general.  "  Pineful,"  he  said  to  the  congregation 
at  large,  "  that's  wot  I  call  it — the  wye  forr'n  gaowld 
degrides  a  'uman  bein'.  Pineful.  Sime  level  as  vermin 
it  degrides  'im.  Nah,  too,  when  our  brive  lads  are 
ficin' — well,  yesterday  I'd  a  said  ficin'  a  few  stinkin' 
Bowers,  but  to-dye  I  sye  ficin'  a  fow  contemp'ible  in 
pint  of  stren'th  an'  currij',  but  a  fow  as  refrines  from 
naow  outrige  on  yoomanity — killin'  the  wounded,  re- 
fusin'  all  quarter,  abusin'  the  wahyt  flag.  Wahy,  it's 
within  mahy  pers'n'l  knowledge  that  the  monsters  in 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  125 

femile  shipe  they  call  their  women  'abitch'ly  turn  aht, 
after  battle,  lahyk,  just  to  mut'lite  ahr  dead,  sime  as 
Afghan  squaws  do." 

The  man  in  the  Norfolk  put  down  a  finger  to  keep  a 
place  on  his  map,  looked  leisurely  up  and  said  in  a 
friendly  tone,  "  Oh,  that's  not  true,  you  know,"  as  if 
the  other  had  dropped  a  pipe  or  a  glove  and  would 
like  to  be  told. 

The  orator  gaped.  His  eyes  bewilderedly  sized  up 
the  culprit,  his  weight,  height,  probable  reach,  and  also 
his  clothes;  and  the  cringing  instinct  of  class  told  the 
bookie  that  he  must  make  himself  much  more  drunk 
with  words  before  he  could  effectively  affront  a  social 
better.  So  he  spoke  almost  calmly :  "  Ahr  f  rien',  I 
see,  is  not  a  reader  of  ahr  pytriotic  press.  More  at 
'ome,  mye-be,  with  all  them  forr'n  gutter  rags  'at  dily 
charges  our  gallan'  army  with  crahyms  so  'orrible  as 
aownly  exists  in  the  diseased  imaginytion  of  'im  that 
says  it." 

"  Killing  the  wounded,  refusing  all  quarter,  abusing 
the  white  flag?':  Printed,  it  looks  like  a  tu  quoque; 
as  uttered  by  him  of  the  tweeds  it  was  like  one 
builder's  friendly  hint  to  another  that  he  is  forgetting 
a  brick. 

But  the  angel  of  wrath  was  now  winging  on  too 
grandly  to  fold  his  wings  yet.  "  Ahr  frien'  does  credit 
to  'is  teachers.  I  'ope  they  knaow  'ah  well  'e's  doin'. 
But  wot  are  we  to  sye,  my  frien's,  of  one  'oo  mikes  the 
en'my's  cause  'is  aown?" 

'  Wring  'is  bleedin'  neck,"  squealed  a  stunted 
phthisical  youth  in  the  corner  remotest  from  the  pro- 


126  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

posed  beneficiary  by  the  suggestion,  whose  eyes  now- 
settled  on  the  youth,  with  an  exploratory  and  con- 
jectural expression  wholly  benevolent,  while  the  more 
gifted  speaker,  concerned  for  his  climax,  held  up  a 
hand. 

"  Wite,  I  sye.  Wite.  Wot  are  we  to  sye  of  one 
'oo  comes  'ere  in  ahr  midst,  'oldin'  a  brief  for  the 
murd'rers  of  'is  countrymen?    Wot — ?  ' 

The  sitter  for  this  portrait,  having  framed  by  now 
a  conception  of  the  bloody-minded  consumptive, 
turned  to  attend  to  the  main  stream  of  commination. 
In  the  same  helpful  voice,  as  though  he  were  wishing 
his  censors  were  making  a  better  job  of  it,  he  asked, 
"  What  was  it  I  said,  now?    Try  back,  my  dear  sir." 

But  the  bookie  was  soaring  beyond  human  aid. 
"  Naow,  my  f rien',  naow !  Naow  use  shufflin'.  I  sye, 
wot  maowtive  can  any  man  'ave — wot  maowtive  bar 
one — fer  shieldin'  the  murd'rers  of  ahr  brothers  an' 
sons — yours  and  mahyn,  fellah-countrymen?'  His 
gestures  expanded;  he  spoke  to  a  nation. 

"Ah?'  The  man  in  the  Norfolk  was  more  ani- 
mated.   "  You  have  a  son  at  the  war?  ': 

"Ah — if  you  aownly  'ad!"  mocked  the  Cockney. 
He  gave  a  forensic  sigh. 

"  I  have  two,"  said  the  other,  without  any  sense  of 
value  in  the  words  as  repartee.  "  One  in  Ladysmith. 
Yours,  sir — where  ?  " 

The  bookie  fled  off  into  figures  of  speech.  "  Yn't 
we  all  sons  of  ahr  country?  Yn't  we  all  brothers? 
Yn't — ?'      He  was  graveled  for  a  moment. 

The  other  went  on   from  his  own  thought,     "  It 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  127 

makes  one  wish  one  were  surer  that  this  war  is  just." 
He  looked  round,  as  if  to  put  a  private  experience  into 
the  pool  were  the  normal  way  of  human  intercourse. 
Browne's  eyes  met  his  and  offered,  perhaps,  a  kind  of 
support,  but  the  offer  was  not  embraced;  the  other,  it 
seemed,  would  as  soon  stand  alone — or  at  least  not 
make  one  in  a  "  set,"  a  tacit  league  of  the  civilized, 
against  poor  brutes. 

The  rhetorician  was  fumbling  back  along  the  track 
of  his  own  eloquence  for  a  good  place  to  start  from 
afresh.  "Did  I  sye  'murd'rers'?  'Ounds,  I  should 
sye — 'ounds,  savidges,  'oose  dev'lish  caowd  degrides 
'em  b'laow  all  civ'lized  bein's.  An'  sneaks,  to  that. 
Curs,  sime  as  'ounds  are." 

The  Norfolked  man  said  in  his  slow  way,  "  I  can't 
feel  sure  they  were  two  thousand  curs  who  beat  those 
five  thousand  of  our  men  last  week."  Browne  could 
see  that  the  man  had  no  irony,  no  humor;  he  merely 
imparted  a  difficulty ;  he  only  wanted  to  know. 

But  at  the  words  Browne  could  feel,  too,  that  a 
shudder  traversed  the  company's  soul.  These  non- 
combatants  had  need  that  the  enemy  they  were  not 
fighting  should  have  every  baseness.  It  was  a  faith 
and,  like  many  faiths,  it  flinched  away  from  the  fingers 
of  sincerity;  it  bleated  or  stormed  to  be  spared  any 
glimpse  of  what  might  have  to  be  faced  if  its  own 
creed  were  true.  Why  raise  such  questions  at  all  ? 
What  could  this  man  want,  hanging  about  the  safe? 
If  he  was  honest,  why  did  he  not  go  away?  One  little 
thimble-rigger,  wrung  to  the  vitals,  gasped  out,  "  'E's 
pide  for  it." 


128  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

"  That's  abaht  it,"  groaned  somebody  else. 

" 'Ow  much  a  week  for  the  two?"  squeaked  the 
undersized  youth,  embracing-  in  one  basilisk  glance  the 
massive  heretic  and  his  own  brother  atomy  ensconced 
behind  that  infidel  bulk. 

And  yet  Browne  felt  indescribably,  inexplicably 
sure  that  in  some  uncorrupted  layer  of  a  few  of  their 
minds  there  was  germinating  in  the  dark  a  dismaying 
admission  that  this  beast  was  braver  than  they,  though 
a  beast,  and  clean,  as  salt  water  is  clean,  though  nause- 
ous. Those  who  had  not  the  means  in  themselves  to 
find  this  in  his  face  imagined  other  dread  possibilities 
there.  His  eyes,  unapprehensive,  seeking,  appraising 
perhaps,  roamed  slowly  over  the  patriots'  persons; 
could  he  be  weighing  their  relative  rights  to  be  thrown 
through  the  window?  "Ah,  my  frien's,"  the  orator 
again  subsided  into  generalities,  "  if  you  noo  all  the 
things  I  knaow  abaht  wot  Bower  gaowld  is  doin' — " 

'In  England?  You  think  many  Englishmen  take 
it?'  The  heathen's  voice  expressed  an  unexhausted 
assurance  that  there  must  be  something  in  what  people 
said,  if  you  could  get  at  it. 

The  bookie  shrugged.  He  threw  himself  upon  pub- 
lic opinion. 

'Bribes?'1  The  other  had  rummaged  out  slowly 
the  unready  word. 

"  I'm  not  argyin'.  I'm  simply  tellin'  yer."  The 
bookie  looked  anxious. 

The  other's  eyes  widened  with  interest.  "  You  can 
tell  us  ?    Cases  you  know  of  ?  " 

"  I  tell  yer  I'm  not  argyin',"  the  bookie  spluttered. 


THE  MORNINGS  WAR  129 

Who  is  not  flustered  to  find  his  chaff  inopportunely 
taken  for  grain?  A  damp  fell  round  these  ardent 
souls  so  chillily  that  at  the  next  station  the  parched 
little  devotee  of  reason  got  out  in  peace. 

When  they  started  again  the  engine  labored ;  the 
train  was  ascending  a  long  mountain  valley ;  the  line 
contoured  high  on  one  flank,  with  a  chain  of  dammed 
lakes  below  in  the  bed  of  the  dale,  in  the  Northern 
way ;  every  fit  glen,  up  there,  must  become  a  town's 
cistern. 

Public  opinion  was  not  silenced  yet,  only  disquieted. 
The  bookie  fell  back  from  the  firing  line  of  debate, 
but  the  virtuous  British  workman,  good  soul,  lowered 
his  vociferous  newspaper,  challenged  the  troubler  with 
a  look  of  "  Frankly,  come  now,  man  to  man,"  and 
said,  "  After  all,  I  s'pose  you'd  allow  it  would  be  right 
your  country's  enemies  should  fight  fair,  like?  ': 

Browne  could  see  the  thoughts  muster,  in  answer, 
like  slow,  intent  children,  before  the  words  came. 
"  I'd  go  even  further,  I  think.  I'd  say  every  one  ought 
to."  As  it  was  uttered  it  was  not  a  snub,  nor  a  cut- 
ting retort,  nor  an  uncutting  platitude;  rather,  it  was 
like  the  rediscovery  of  a  lost  region,  humbly  communi- 
cated by  a  diffident  finder.  So  Browne  thought,  but 
the  rest  were  only  the  more  disturbed.  They  gave  it 
up;  their  inward  peace  was  menaced;  where  would  it 
end  if  we  all  were  to  look  at  things  in  that  way,  with 
that  disloyalty  to  accepted  tacit  precautions  for  taking 
the  sting  out  of  truth?  And  yet,  deuce  take  the  man, 
somehow  he  mattered.  Browne  read  that  much  in 
their  silence. 


130  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

The  quick  grunts  of  the  mounting  engine  stopped, 
almost  at  a  platform.  Howden  it  was.  Browne 
jumped  out  at  once  and  saw  Mullivant  coming  to  meet 
him.  No;  to  meet  somebody  else,  seen  over  Browne's 
shoulder.  '  Morning,  Bruntwood,"  Mullivant  said, 
with  a  look  of  content. 

Browne  looked  round.  '  Morning,"  the  man  in  the 
Norfolk  jacket  was  answering,  with  a  quiet,  long-last- 
ing smile  of  equally  deep  contentment. 

'  You  didn't  guess?  "  Mullivant  asked  of  Browne. 

'  No.  I  knew  Pistol  at  once,  and  Bardolph  and 
one  or  two  others,  but — " 

"  But  not  Sir  Bors?  "  laughed  Mullivant. 

Bruntwood's  look  said,  "  What's  this  recondite  allu- 
sion? "     His  looks  often  did. 

Mullivant  beamed  on  the  other's  perplexity.  "  Only 
a  buffer  in  Tennyson,*  rather  like  you." 

*Possibly  Mullivant  thought  of  the  lines  in  the  "  Holy  Grail," 
a  poem  still  much  read  at  that  time  : 

"  Sir  Bors  it  was 
Who  spake  so  low  and  sadly  at  our  board ; 
And  mighty  reverent  at  our  grace  was  he ; 
A  square-set  man  and  honest ;  and  his  eyes, 
An  out-door  sign  of  all  the  warmth  within, 
Smiled  with  his  lips." 


CHAPTER  XI 

"  This  other  Eden,  demi-paradise, 
.    .    .     .    this  little  world, 

This  blessed  plot." 

King  Richard  II.,  Act  ii.  Scene  I. 

AT  the  station  they  left  the  main  valley  and  walked 
^/V.  for  two  hours  up  a  tributary  defile.  It  narrowed 
and  blackened  till  both  its  sides  were  steep  slants  of 
dark  shale,  with  the  solid  rock  cropping  out  from  it  in 
low  vertical  tiers  of  crag,  each  with  its  own  refuse- 
shoot  of  broken  stone  streaming  away  from  its  foot. 
The  sides  converged  at  last  to  form  a  rough  gully  of 
scree.  Up  it  the  three  walkers  stumbled  and  puffed,  to 
emerge  above  on  the  upper  story  of  Northern  England. 
Color  and  form  conspired  to  give  Browne  a  sense  of 
soft  undulation  in  this  high  moor.  Purple  and  tan  and 
chocolate,  grave  green  and  clear  green  and  greenish 
gray,  the  unlevel  carpet  of  mixed  heather,  bracken, 
bilberries,  many  grasses  and  emerald  weed,  rose  and 
fell,  mile  beyond  mile,  the  light  and  the  dark  in  its 
pattern  sometimes  stressing  and  sometimes  rendering 
less  salient  the  modeling  of  the  land,  as  the  paint  on 
an  actor's  face  deepens  a  dimple  or  erases  a  line. 

Bruntwood  and  Mullivant  seemed  to  know  what 
they  were  making  for.  Browne  did  not  ask.  There 
is  a  good  taste  of  their  own  about  places  you  come  to 

131 


132  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

without  knowing  how;  they  have  the  disconnection  of 
dreams  from  the  cumbrance  of  all  questions  of  access; 
it  only  englamours  their  memory  more  to  feel  that  you 
could  not  by  any  means  find  your  way  back  to  them 
now.  An  hour's  wading  through  heather  and  bil- 
berries led  them  out  on  to  a  plateau  a  little  higher  still. 
It  was  springy  ground,  barer  now,  and  peat-dark. 
The  two  leaders  gazed  intently  over  this  bog,  seemed 
to  agree,  and  set  off  again  towards  a  group  of  slight 
swellings  upon  its  surface. 

They  walked  thus  for  another  half  hour,  commu- 
nicative grunts  between  Bruntwood  and  Mullivant 
growing  more  frequent.  Then  these  two  stopped,  cast 
about  for  some  minutes  like  hounds  that  have  all  but 
got  good  scent,  and  finally  came  to  a  stand  at  a  boss  or 
tussock  of  peat,  perhaps  a  yard  square  and  rising,  like 
thousands  of  similar  tussocks  round  it,  a  couple  of  feet 
above  the  bed  of  the  eroded  trenches  that  reticulated 
the  whole  surface  of  the  moss. 

Mullivant  stood  on  the  boss.  He  kicked  it,  simu- 
lating casualness.  "  Top  of  England — this  hum- 
mock," he  said  to  Browne,  with  his  little  laugh  a  little 
embarrassed. 

"  Not,  of  course,"  Bruntwood  said,  word  by  word, 
"  the  very  highest  point." 

Mullivant's     face    delighted    in    the    literal    man. 
'No,"  he  said;  "no  disrespect  to  Scawfell.     But  the 
ridge  of  the  roof.    See  !  " 

Browne's  eyes  followed  the  speaker's,  and  saw. 
From  the  flooded  outer  cells  at  one  side  of  the  soaked 
sponge  under  Mullivant's  feet  the  brown  bog-water 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  133 

oozed  out  at  his  pressure  and  trickled  a  few  inches 
down  its  outer  wall,  a  drop  at  a  time,  till  it  neared  the 
line  of  another  broken  drip  from  a  few  inches  off. 
The  two  came  together  with  the  pause  and  sudden  em- 
brace of  raindrops  meeting  on  a  pane,  and  hurried  on. 
Three  inches  further  another  drop  rushed  to  join  them, 
and  then  another  and  another,  till  in  the  bed  of  the 
trench  at  the  foot  of  the  little  peat  wall  there  was 
enough  water  moving  to  break  on  a  stone  in  its  way 
with  an  infinitesimal  plash,  the  first  cry  of  an  infant 
river. 

"  The  Mersey ! "  Mullivant  said,  with  his  face 
kindling.  The  shyness  of  a  child  avowing  a  great  find 
was  being  burnt  up  by  a  child's  ungovernable  jubila- 
tion.    "  Now  come  over  here." 

Browne  stepped  across  the  hummock  and  over  the 
little  ditch  on  its  far  side,  and  turned  to  look.  Out  of 
this  wall  of  the  hummock  there  welled  slow  drop  after 
drop,  each  remoistening  for  a  second  a  track  down  the 
wall  to  a  tiny  moat  of  wine-dark  bilge  at  its  foot,  stag- 
nant except  at  one  end ;  there,  when  the  air  stirred  the 
bilge,  its  ripples  lipped  over  a  chance  dam  formed  in 
the  peaty  trash  and  fell  a  few  inches  into  a  lower 
reach  of  the  trench.  There  was  more  water  there ;  it 
had  other  feeders;  at  the  far  end  it  moved  away 
visibly. 

"  If  you  might  call  the  other  the  Mersey,  then  per- 
haps you  might  call  this  the  Trent! '  Bruntwood  said 
this  and  then  exploded  in  a  big  laugh  at  the  violence 
of  the  verbal  gambol  that  he  had  executed. 

"  Jump  on  the  hummock,"  said  Mullivant.      '  All 


134  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

jump.  Make  a  flood  in  the  German  Ocean  and  Irish 
Sea." 

Bruntwood  roared.  If  he  ever  understood  a  figure 
of  speech  it  was  as  a  tremendous  practical  joke,  a  big 
guiltless  lie  by  which  you  naturally  take  care  that  no 
one  shall  be  taken  in.  "  Inundate  Liverpool  and 
Hull !  "  he  said,  in  a  tone  to  which  notes  of  exclama- 
tion can  do  no  justice,  and  roared  again. 

Mullivant  visibly  doated  on  Bruntwood  when 
Bruntwood  gave  way  like  this  to  his  temperament. 
"Now,  all  together !  "  Mullivant  ordered,  crowding  the 
three  of  them  on  to  the  big  peaten  footstool.  All 
three  jumped  as  one  man,  till  from  each  of  its  sides 
the  dark  juice  gushed  and  spurted;  the  minute  cisterns 
that  caught  it  were  all  astir. 

'  Cease  jumping!  "  said  Mullivant,  blowing.  There 
was  a  moment's  pause,  half  awkward,  but  only  half. 
Browne  was  being  initiated  into  something.  He  felt 
and  liked  it.  Each  of  the  two  wise  babies  was  taking 
him  tacitly  into  the  league  that  bound  them,  each 
other's  opposites  as  they  were,  and  sent  them  up  into 
these  moorland  places  to  play  at  such  games  as  tracing 
pairs  of  rivers  and  seas  to  their  first  rivalry  as  suitors 
for  oozings  from  the  gorged  tissues  of  one  cubic  foot 
of  a  bog.  With  a  little  glow  of  pride  Browne  felt  he 
was  fit  to  come  in.  He  had  drunk  before  of  the  cup 
of  their  drunkenness,  upon  the  Dent  Rouge,  when 
Europe  unrolled  itself  like  a  scroll.  How  things  be- 
longed to  each  other !  How  they  closed  in,  all  of  them 
good,  as  if  to  some  one  great  end  or  high  happiness! 
What  brought  him  here,  to  find  elder  brothers  ?    What 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  135 

sent  him  and  that  girl  who  was  now  a  figure  in  every 
landscape  of  thought — what  sent  them  up  the  moun- 
tain together  and  lit  the  fire  in  his  blood?  Chance? 
Accidents,  then,  could  conspire,  counsel  and  authorize. 
Everything  grew  to  one  point;  he  was  waved  towards 
it  by  hand  after  hand. 

"  Do  you  remember,"  Bruntwood  asked  Mullivant, 
"  that  field  near  Naseby — the  one  where  the  Avon 
starts,  close  to  the  church,  and  the  Nen  just  over  the 
way?" 

"  And  the  Welland  too,  in  the  parson's  cellar,"  said 
Mullivant,  "  three  miles  away.  What  a  place  to  be 
buried  in !  " 

"  Naseby  ?  "  asked  Aubrey. 

Bruntwood  explained.  "  Yes,  the  men,  or  at  least 
some  of  the  men,  that  were  killed  in  the  fight.  They 
are  in  a  big  pit.    The  earth  has  sunk  in  a  little." 

"  England's  dead  center,  that  place,"  Mullivant  said 
— "  the  tip  top;  she  falls  away  from  it  all  around." 

"  There  are  brambles  round  the  pit,"  Bruntwood 
toiled  on  at  his  own  internal  picture. 

Mullivant  rushed  on  with  his.  "  The  Trent,  and 
the  Thames,  and  the  Ouse,  and  the  Stratford  Avon  all 
come  up  to  your  feet.  And  Edgehill  in  sight — a  long 
ridge.  Remember,  Brunt,  how  it  stuck  up  in  the  sun- 
set?" 

Bruntwood  had  finished  his  own  small  Naseby  land- 
scape within  him  at  last.  He  emerged  from  absorp- 
tion. "Yes,  during  the  'orgy,'"  he  said,  surround- 
ing the  last  word  with  laughter  as  though  with  vast 
inverted  commas. 


136  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

Some  other  huge  joke,  thought  Browne,  and  glanc- 
ing at  Mullivant,  saw  its  mildness  and  age  in  Mulli- 
vant's  look  of  affectionate  mirth  at  the  beloved  dullness 
of  his  friend.  '  Bruntwood  refers,"  he  said,  "  to  a 
bu'st  we  once  had,  of  topography." 

"  Yes?  "  Browne  importuned. 

'  We  walked  all  along  England's  spine.  We  began 
at  the  Border  and  came  South,  keeping  right  up  on  the 
main  watershed,  so  that  we  never  crossed  a  river. 
That  was  the  game.  They  all  fell  away,  right  and  left, 
before  us.  Down  as  far  as  the  Peak  we  could  go 
pretty  straight.  Then  we  had  to  fetch  a  big  bend  to  the 
right — the  west,  you  know — so  as  not  to  wet  our  feet 
in  the  head  of  the  Trent;  then  back  to  the  left — the 
east — to  Naseby,  to  dodge  round  all  the  tips  of  the 
Avon;  and  then  west  again,  for  a  deuce  of  a  way,  to 
keep  up  from  the  Thames,  and  so  on.  That  was  the 
orgy." 

'  Well,  I'm  blowed,"  said  Browne,  cordially. 

Mullivant  warmed.  '  So  were  we.  I  found  I  had 
never  seen  England  till  then.  Bits  of  her  I'd  seen,  of 
course,  but  not  her — the  whole  figure.  We  looked 
down  from  the  top  into  every  Jack  one  of  the  water- 
tight hollows  she's  made  of,  and  saw  what  it  was  like, 
and  the  river  in  each  one  like  a  big  leafless  tree — trunk 
and  branches  and  twigs ;  when  you  touched  a  twig  all 
the  tree  came  into  sight,  right  down  to  the  sails  of 
barges  out  on  the  H umber.  Just  look."  He  pointed 
where,  far  out  to  their  left,  there  ran,  broken  and  dim, 
a  bar  of  high  ground,  a  rib  of  England's  skeleton,  trek- 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  137 

king  crookedly  away  across  lowland  Yorkshire's 
broad  stretch  of  green.    Browne  saw. 

"  '  Little  England  !  '  cried  Mullivant.  "  People 
sneer  at  it !  Thank  all  your  gods  it's  so  small.  Only 
just  small  enough  to  be  seen;  still,  it's  possible.  Beg 
pardon,  though;  you're  an  Irishman." 

"  Is  it  lovers  of  different  mistresses  that  would  be 
jealous?  "  said  Browne;  not  that  he  had,  as  yet,  a  love 
like  this  for  any  place.  But  he  knew  love  when  he  saw 
it;  here  was  the  real  thing,  in  Mullivant's  face  and 
voice — the  ecstasy  over  visible  traits  of  love's  object, 
the  craving  of  sense  to  take  it  all  in,  round  and 
whole  as  a  jewel,  small  and  embraceable,  apt  to  lovers' 
diminutives. 

Two  Cordelias  abetting  each  other  to  doat  on  one 
wayward  parent  could  scarcely  have  talked  sentiment 
less  than  Mullivant  and  Bruntwood  did  for  the  rest  of 
that  day.  Still,  they  would  let  out  a  reference  now  and 
again  to  some  old  walk  or  ride;  one  or  other  would 
look  up  a  name  here  and  there  in  the  joint  mental  index 
that  they  kept  of  their  funded  visions;  and  Browne, 
now  on  the  watch,  would  catch  glimpses  of  Evesham 
orchards  as  they  are  when  the  enamored  eye  sees 
them  dropping  apples  to  float  in  Shakespeare's  slow 
Avon ;  of  Tudor  houses  knee-deep  in  the  mists  of  win- 
ter sunsets;  and  then,  again,  of  the  roaring  Strand 
with  the  air  a  dust  of  gold  on  fine  afternoons;  or  of 
the  wind  planing  the  South  coast  into  shape  with  the 
rub,  rub  of  shingle  pressed,  always  the  one  way,  by  the 
Atlantic's  hand;  or  the  make  of  this  great  triple-lay- 
ered Pennine  arch,  astride  of  North  England — how 


138  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

the  crown  of  the  arch  was  worn  off  till  the  edges  of 
all  its  coating  layers  showed  raw — red  rock  and  coal 
and  dark  rock.  Browne  could  shut  his  eyes  and  see 
the  layered  floor  crumple  itself  into  hills. 

Once,  as  they  sat  smoking  after  their  sandwiches, 
something  political  made  its  way  into  the  talk.  Then 
the  shocking  last  truth  about  Bruntwood  came  undis- 
guisably  out.  He  was  a  voluptuary;  only,  his  secret 
revels  were  all  on  equities,  decencies,  uncompelled 
fairnesses.  Old,  platitudinous  tags  about  conduct, 
'  Do  as  you  would  be  done  by,"  and  so  on,  would  go 
to  this  hedonist's  head  like  new  wine.  He  would  fix 
ravenous  teeth  in  some  precept  long  dead,  canonized 
and  moldering  into  dust,  like  "  Blessed  are  the  peace- 
makers," and  devour,  whole,  all  that  was  left,  no  mat- 
ter what  it  did  in  his  vitals.  Sayings  of  Christ's  that 
drop  upon  most  men  like  the  gentle  rain  from  heaven, 
pattering  softly  on  the  sound  roof  of  the  soul  and 
giving  point  and  piquancy  to  the  complacent  snugness 
within,  would  beat  right  into  the  unslated  spirit  of 
this  incomplete  person,  and  search  and  scour  the  in- 
terior. Browne  began,  as  the  day  went  on,  to  under- 
stand the  singleness  of  eye  that  fills  the  whole  body  of 
a  St.  Francis  with  inadequately-shaded  light.  But 
self-sacrifice? — not  a  bit  of  it.  Keeping  a  newspaper 
clean  was  his  sport  and  hobby ;  he  let  his  mind  run  on 
it  always,  just  as  another  man  will  let  his  mind  run, 
even  in  working  hours,  on  his  high  hopes  of  his  golf. 
He  was  a  man  of  pleasure,  unbridled. 

Sometimes  he  wrote  for  the  paper.  It  was  not  his 
line ;  his  writing  had  almost  every  known  imperfection. 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  139 

But  Mullivant  made  him,  whenever  he  saw  that  Brunt- 
wood's  appetite  was  fastening  on  some  relevant  old 
saw  as  if  it  had  been  brought  down  that  morning  from 
Sinai,  or  up  from  Bethlehem,  shining  and  salt  as  the 
last  paradox.  There  had  just  come  such  a  season. 
Bruntwood  had  now  for  some  weeks  been  giving  it 
out  in  his  club-footed  style  that  a  nation,  even  one's 
own  nation,  may  not  be  the  better  for  doing  a  thing 
that,  if  done  by  a  man,  would  get  him  blackballed  at 
clubs.  It  was  the  kind  of  idea  that  skilled  navigators 
of  life  will  chart  and  buoy  out  like  a  shoal,  to  keep  their 
craft  well  off  it.  Bruntwood  had  not  that  wit.  Yet 
the  things  the  crank  said  seemed  to  count.  Even  the 
wise  found  they  could  not  just  look  the  other  way,  as 
they  would  like,  when  some  discomforting  truism  dug 
up  by  Bruntwood  was  awkwardly  breaking  the  bands 
of  the  grave,  or  some  two  and  two  were  being  joined 
together  that  man  for  his  peace  had  put  asunder. 

'  If  you  or  I,"  Mullivant  said  to  Browne,  late  in 
that  day,  when  Bruntwood  was  out  of  hearing,  "  were 
ever  to  sit  down  and  write,  with  our  admirable  arts 
of  persuasion,  that  cheating  at  cards  is  not  quite  the 
thing  between  nations,  we  should  be  prigs,  and  the 
stuff  dead  as  mutton.  Bruntwood  can  do  it,  though; 
does  it  as  if  he  were  telling  you  what's  won  the  Derby. 
People  listen,  too — swear,  but  listen.  They  have  to. 
The  word's  made  flesh  and  dwells  with  'em.  They'd 
ignore  us.  But  him!  Crusoe  couldn't  ignore  the  live 
foot  on  the  sand." 

He  spoke  as  if  Bruntwood  were  not  of  his  species. 
Browne  saw  better.    At  least,  in  being  weather-beaten 


140  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

together,  the  dyes  of  the  two  had  stained  pretty  deep 
into  each  other.  Bruntvvood's  joy,  behind  all  his 
phlegm,  in  conceiving  a  duty  or  bearing  a  right  re- 
straint had  at  first  tickled  Mullivant,  in  his  youth,  then 
rather  touched  him,  then  animated  him.  Once  he  had 
thought  of  such  things  only  as  denials,  voids,  chills, 
provender  for  the  worst  Nonconformists,  a  diet  of  east 
wind;  here  was  a  marvel — a  man  whom  they  warmed 
and  lit.  Bruntwood  had  gone  to  school,  too,  to  his 
friend  the  enjoyer  of  shapely  utterance  and  imagina- 
tive play.  He  had  been  wiled  into  making  an  idol,  a 
graven  image  of  England,  as  seen  on  hundreds  of  such 
days  as  this  with  the  lover's  transfiguring  eye.  Pool- 
ing their  whims  together  the  two  had  made  a  joint  fad 
of  a  novel — or  is  it  antiquated? — patriotism,  remote 
from  the  current  modes  of  that  virtue.  For  scarcely 
any  spite  went  to  the  making  of  it,  and  no  fear  at  all ; 
it  had  not  been  come  at  by  trains  of  reasoning,  nor 
taken  out  of  a  book,  nor  was  it  a  hot  sense  of  having 
the  title-deeds  to  a  fat  estate,  nor  a  caterer's  impulse 
to  meet  any  demand  his  customers  might  make  for 
special  emotions.  It  was  mere,  sheer  affection.  A 
schoolboy  attuned  to  the  wisdom  of  the  age  could 
show  in  a  moment  that  people  like  these  two  were 
nook-shotten,  cast  away  far  from  the  main  march  of 
mind,  and  that  lust  is  not  lust  if  one's  own  nation 
feels  it,  nor  theft  theft  if  there  be  no  jail  in  which  it 
could  cause  her  hair  to  be  cut.  To  these  truths  the 
two  were  impenetrable  now.  For  one  thing,  they  did 
not  know  the  ends  of  the  earth  and  had  never  lived 
on  black,  brown  or  yellow  men.     But  what  misled 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  141 

them  most  was  the  way  they  knew  England,  every  look 
of  her  face  and  the  shape  of  its  bones.  English 
downs  with  dawn  breaking  over  them  seemed  to  put 
up  a  troubling  petition  that  they  might  not  be  befouled. 
When  clear-eyed  men  from  Simla  and  Cairo  would 
show  that  Falstaff  had  erred  and  that  it  is  not  in  men 
but  in  nations  that  honor  is  a  scutcheon  only,  the 
two  would  feel  a  sick  rage  as  though  some  brother, 
who  had  not  lived  much  at  home,  came  in  with  a  plan 
for  making  the  old  mother  get  drunk  or  pick  pockets. 
No  matter  if  people  proved  she  would  not  be  caught; 
the  two  would  not  learn ;  all  they  knew  was  that  they 
did  not  want  the  Thames  of  their  youth  to  be  a  seam 
in  the  face  of  a  slut,  or  Land's  End  a  cad's  eye.  When 
our  prudent  rulers  abandoned  our  wards  for  Abdul 
Hamid  to  murder,  Bruntwood  felt  as  if  the  white- 
walled  dale  where  he  fished  in  the  Peak  were  plastered 
with  some  physical  filth  of  dishonor;  Mullivant  found 
that  something  living  was  hanging  its  head  in  the 
silent  miles  of  river  meadow  up  by  Lechlade  in  the 
autumn  twilights. 

The  weather  was  changing  all  day ;  hardy,  raw  air 
in  the  morning,  a  child's  secret  delight  to  go  out  in ; 
then  two  or  three  hours  of  sun  and  racing  shadows; 
then  a  whole  sky  cleared  for  one  rickety  tower  of 
storm-cloud,  piled  floor  above  floor,  to  stalk  across  the 
hills,  a  mile  off;  while  that  was  still  lurching  away 
top-heavily  into  the  east  a  pack  of  thinner  vapors 
rushed  after  it,  overtook  it,  drew  across  it  a  gauzy, 
smoke-colored  curtain,  shaded  in  lines  that  slanted 
down  eastwards,   through  which  the  towering  stack 


142  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

behind  them  showed  black ;  and  then  those  dropping 
veils  had  packed  away  in  their  turn,  whipped  in  by 
their  own  fussing  rear-guard;  many  weathers,  many 
climates,  all  of  them  good,  blowing  changefully  over 
one  island  that  Browne  could  see  whole  now,  like  a 
raised  map  modeled  in  stone  and  laid,  not  quite  flat, 
on  the  ground — indeed  with  one  corner  sunk  into  it. 
North-westward  was  nothing  but  stone — stone  walls 
to  the  stony  fields,  stone-gray  cottages,  stone  inter- 
leaving coal  in  the  pits,  stone  sticking  out  rawly  in 
streets  and  twisting  the  tips  of  plows.  South-east- 
ward the  plaque  of  stone  dipped  and  dived  down  as  a 
sloping  landing-stage  slants  into  a  high  tide;  a  sea  of 
soft  clays  and  sands  closed  level  over  it.  It  was  all 
one;  he  had  seen  affection,  the  only  maker  of  Edens, 
render  it  so. 

In  his  room  that  night  he  could  not  go  to  bed  for  a 
while,  the  good  things  that  he  had  to  think  of  thronged 
in  so  throbbingly,  tightening  the  hot  forehead.  He 
had  to  stand  at  an  open  window  to  cool  and  breathe, 
looking  down  on  the  rain-washed  midnight  city  silent 
under  him.  Presently  from  a  neighboring  window 
there  rose  the  choruses  of  a  late  party,  some  of  the 
voices  half-tipsy  and  barbed  with  the  poignancy  of 
expiring  youth.  Fugitive  youth,  fugitive  poignancy, 
mystical  treasures  flowing  past  in  a  stream.  The 
chorus  trailed  off  into  silence,  a  door  slammed,  good- 
nights  were  heard  in  the  resonant  street;  then  silence 
congealed  till  from  a  mile  away  there  lifted  into  clear- 
ness the  ringing  owl  notes  of  the  buffers  of  trucks 
shunted  at  some  siding.     These,  too,  had  beauty;  it 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  143 

rent  and  enchanted  and  cried  out  for  rescue  from  its 
own  inarticulateness.  All  things  had  that  riddlesome 
beauty  that  numbed  and  evoked,  half  inspired  and  half 
left  you  bewildered,  dimly  aware  of  wonderful  things 
to  be  done  and  noble,  unavailable  powers  in  you  to  do 
them ;  the  powers  wandered  about  helplessly  seeking 
the  place  to  begin,  the  order  to  take,  the  one  call  for 
them  to  obey  in  a  universe  of  summoning  clarions. 
Now  it  came  clear.  From  that  racket  of  call  and 
cross-call,  impulse  and  counter-impulse,  his  new 
friends  at  Brabburn  had  found  a  way  out ;  they,  at 
least,  were  clear  of  the  forest  and  marched  along  sing- 
ing; they  had  pierced  to  the  secret — he  saw  it  now — 
of  all  the  every-day  miracle-doers;  like  corn  they  could 
make  strength  from  clay,  and  could  draw  good  cheer, 
like  vines,  out  of  granite  and  rain.  They  were  what 
he  had  wished  he  might  be,  though  it  was  not  till  now 
that  he  knew  he  had  wished  it:  they  were  the  men;  if 
he  might  he  would  stand  with  them. 


CHAPTER  XII 

"  Nearing,  her  god  breathed  on  her,  till  she  seemed 
More  tall  and  spoke,  like  gods,  compellingly." 

Virgil  :  iEneid,  Book  vi. 

WHEN  the  End  House  door  at  Up-Felday  was 
opened  to  Browne  at  two  the  next  day  there 
rose  on  his  ear,  like  scent  from  a  hottle  uncorked,  the 
voice  of  his  host  from  some  room  within :  it  was  mur- 
murous, suavely  petulant,  tinting  mere  space  into  an  at- 
mosphere. '  Figure  it !  Now — in  October !  A  garden- 
party  !  '  The  voice,  with  its  soft  suffusiveness,  shed 
itself  out  through  some  open  door  into  the  hall  as  the 
smell  of  dried  rose-leaves  did.  "  Colchicum,  what 
things  are  done  in  thy  name !  " 

"  Father,  it  isn't  October  at  large;  it's  this  October." 
June's  voice  was  no  tint  or  shade,  but  a  line,  a  couched 
spring,  a  pulse,  elasticity. 

She  must  be  at  a  window,  Browne  thought,  with  her 
eyes  on  the  red  and  gold  of  the  garden.  Late  autumn 
had  burst  into  radiance ;  London  had  glowed  that 
morning  when  he  was  crossing  it;  liquid  light,  with  a 
rosiness  in  it,  had  seemed  to  be  washing  about  between 
the  houses,  like  water  carried  in  a  red  wheel-barrow. 

'  Well,  then,  my  dearest,  since  'tis  so, 
Since  naught  remains  but  that  we  go — " 

Runs  it  not  thus?    Let  us  catch  cold,  then,  because  it 

144 


THE  MORNINGS  WAR  145 

is  fine.  Ah !  this  is  pleasant  " — Mr.  Hathersage,  cross- 
ing the  library  door-mat,  had  sighted  the  entering 
Browne. 

"Will  you  come  with  us?"  June  was  saying  to 
Browne  a  few  minutes  later,  "or  are  you  too  tired? 
Such  a  garden,  the  Anthons' ! — a  piece  of  stage 
scenery,  crowded  with  prettinesses — the  last  cry  in 
quaintness,  and  all  cut  out  of  the  side  of  a  hill,"  she 
pattered  on,  playing  the  cordial  entertainer. 

Browne  could  only  half  listen.  He  looked  at  her 
clothes  with  a  disconcertment.  They  were  not  the 
ones  that  he  knew.  Of  course  not.  Why  should  they 
be  ?  Yet  the  change  seemed  to  hold  him  off  from  her. 
What  she  had  worn  had  been  part  of  her,  part  of  her 
manner  at  any  rate,  worn  by  her  as  she  wore  her  looks 
and  remembered  by  him  in  all  their  gestures,  and  now 
there  was  this  estranging  lodgment,  of  something  that 
might  still  be  she,  amidst  new  femininities. 

Mr.  Hathersage  stood  with  a  hand  on  the  door. 
"  You  go  to  the  slaughter  with  us?  " 

Browne  collected  his  wits.     Yes,  he  would  enjoy  it. 

June  looked  at  her  father.  "  I'll  tell  them — shall  I 
— to  balance  the  cart  for  four?  " 

A  faint  little  fussiness  effervesced  for  a  moment  in 
Mr.  Hathersage,  rounding  and  brightening  his  mild 
eyes.  "  Perhaps  Mr.  Browne  would  bear  with  a  coun- 
try habit  of  ours — perhaps  if  we  just  drove  ourselves 
in  the — " 

June  understood;  so  did  Browne,  when  the  time 
to  start  came.  The  horse  that  had  brought  him  up 
from  the  station  was  standing  again  at  the  door,  but 


146  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

not  in  the  shafts  of  the  same  goodly  dog-cart.  A 
lowly,  tarnished  conveyance  had  taken  its  place,  a 
shallow  hollow  in  basket-work,  such  as  old  ladies  of 
that  period  would  sometimes  use  in  the  country.  Some 
touch  of  spickness  or  spanness  seemed  to  have  faded, 
too,  from  the  man  who  had  driven  Browne  and  who 
stood  at  the  horse's  head  now. 

June  drove  them  the  two  miles  through  lanes 
scooped  out  of  sand,  under  arching  hedges  of  hazel. 
Sunned  sand  and  pine,  gorse  and  heather  with  bees 
still  astir  in  them,  sent  up  a  warm,  scented  hum. 
It  was  the  heart  of  the  choiceness  of  Surrey.  Even 
the  blind  had  seen  that:  jimp  huts  and  toy  farms  told 
where  solvent  gropers  after  the  beauty  of  life  had 
ceased  groping  awhile  and  thought  they  had  found  it; 
two  or  three  preposterous,  pretty  palaces,  hooded  with 
hillsides  of  tile,  tried  to  be  seen  wooing  solitude. 
'  They  bring  us  new  and  pleasant  neighbors,"  said 
Mr.  Hathersage,  eyeing  without  overt  disrelish  the 
newest  stack  of  gables  and  vanes,  chimneys  and 
weather-boards,  white  paint  and  red.  No  vibration  of 
irony  could  be  discerned  in  his  voice;  the  old  patrician 
kept  his  disdain  to  himself  to  feed  on:  his  hospitality 
stopped  short  of  sharing  that  dainty  with  Browne,  the 
last  guest  picked  up  from  the  highways  or  byways  of 
this  coarse  world. 

Browne  saw  it  and  chafed  at  a  self-assurance  hoisted 
and  poised  so  high  above  the  common  vulgarities  of 
arrogance.  Why,  it  was  worse,  it  was  arrogance  twice 
distilled,  the  quintessence,  the  finest  coxcombry  of  ex- 
clusion.    So  that  was  why  they  were  sitting  a  foot 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  147 

from  the  ground,  on  faded  cushions.  Shabbiness,  the 
foregoing  of  show,  was  a  badge  that  he  must  have 
made  for  his  caste  in  this  mid-Surrey  world  of 
splashed  money  and  shining  and  out-shining  appoint- 
ments. It  was  oppressive  to  think  of  that  still,  with- 
drawn, innermost  keep  where  pride  lived  by  itself,  un- 
competing  and  effortless,  so  guarded  away  from  the 
strife  without  that  it  had  the  leisure  to  pamper  its 
own  lonely  and  delicate  love  of  itself  with  mock  hu- 
milities of  surrender. 

Just  once,  in  that  drive,  it  was  as  if  a  boy  with  some 
warmer  blood  of  merry  mischief  in  him  had  lightly 
mounted  the  coping  of  that  frigid  citadel,  shaking  de- 
risive fists  at  an  uncouth  besieger.  June,  with  a  quick 
laugh  and  pointing  nod,  drew  their  eyes  as  they  passed 
to  an  arched  pole,  eighteen  inches  high,  at  the  foot  of 
the  garden  wall  of  a  resplendent  week-end  cottage 
with  a  double  coach-house.  In  the  wall  there  were 
many  doors,  each  with  its  title  painted  above  it,  to 
guard  against  intrusive  pollutions — "  Visitors'  En- 
trance," "  Coachman's  Entrance,"  "  Tradesmen's 
Entrance."  A  cock,  aloft  on  fastidious  stilts,  was 
picking  its  way  through  the  hole,  and  over  the  arch 
some  rustic  wag  had  hastily  chalked  up  "  Fowls'  En- 
trance." 

Browne  laughed  out;  Mr.  Hathersage  laughed  too, 
a  little,  and  wintrily.  He  saw  the  point  of  everything; 
it  was  his  life  to  do  that;  yet  there  was  something  in 
him  that  half  withheld  itself  from  savoring  a  wit  that 
tasted  so  of  the  earth,  as  the  delicate  wonder  and 
doubt  at  the   rude  meals   of   health.     June's   laugh, 


148  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

nipped  by  that  touch  of  frost,  turned  to  a  fret  on  the 
lips;  she  gave  all  her  eyes  to  her  driving;  the  jovial 
human  hail  from  the  fortress  walls  was  suppressed; 
all  that  was  left  was  a  glimpse  of  hope  that  the  garri- 
son might  not  always  be  wholly  at  one  with  itself. 
Perhaps  the  hope  could  be  seen  in  his  face  when  June 
saw  it  next,  for  when  she  spoke  it  was  more  in  her 
father's  vein  than  her  father  himself;  she  did  penance 
jealously,  making  occasions  for  it;  she  started  a  strain 
of  Olympian  charity  towards  Sir  Valentine  Anthon, 
the  host  they  were  going  to. 

Mr.  Hathersage  took  it  up,  happy  in  mind  again. 
'  Really  a  quite  intelligent  man,  on  some  subjects. 
An  oculist,  now  retired,  a  little  '  perplexed  wi' 
leisure,'  perhaps.  Let  me  advise  you  to  ask  him 
about  the  French  Emperor's  eyes.  An  entertaining 
story." 

"  He  is  our  Lord  of  the  Manor,"  said  June. 

'  So   that    really   we   owe    him,"    her    father   said, 
"  what  courtesy  is  in  our  power." 

Thus  did  these  two,  though  no  longer  quite  one, 
agree  for  the  moment  to  shut  Browne  formally  out  of 
their  high  Roman  thoughts  on  the  inrush  of  Vandal 
and  Hun,  on  the  flushed  arriving  stockbrokers  and  law- 
yers, or  new-risen  baronets  shining  uneasily  in  en- 
larged skies.  Such  was  Sir  Valentine  Anthon,  a  kind 
little  man  bewildered  with  wealth  and  loss  of  function, 
and  straying  about  his  great  house  and  fine  garden 
like  some  cat  bereft  of  its  last  kitten,  looking  for  what 
he  had  hoped,  during  fifty  years'  toil,  that  rest  after 
toil  would  be.     Mr.  Hathersage  gave  him,  for  some 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  149 

twenty  minutes,  illusions  of  finding  it,  so  benign  is  the 
force  of  good  manners. 

June  practised  the  great  manner  too.  Lady  Anthon 
was  lame ;  she  asked,  would  Miss  Hathersage  show  Mr. 
Browne  their  little  attempt  at  gardening.  June 
showed  off  the  money-made  tit-bits  with  loyal  gravity; 
Browne  must  not  miss  the  grotto,  the  Faun,  the  me- 
chanical rainbow,  Pomona's  temple,  the  copper  beech 
that  really  was  copper,  with  fountainous  twigs ;  turn 
a  tap  and  they  played.  Browne  met  her  on  that  level. 
Coldness  and  stiffness? — well,  so  let  it  be.  So  she 
went  on,  giving  the  poor  gauds  their  chance,  and  he 
would  not  take  it  away.  They  walked  and  talked  for 
a  while,  with  their  tongues  keeping  step  in  the  stiff, 
chivalrous  exercise. 

Garden  and  house  were  perched  like  a  golf -ball  on  a 
hanging  lie.  Wealth,  as  if  with  one  cut  of  a  spade, 
had  sliced  out  for  their  site  a  flat  step  under  the  top  of 
a  woody  hill.  "Look!'  said  June,  suddenly,  in  a 
new  tone.  They  were  on  the  terrace,  the  edge  of  that 
step.  A  balustrade,  late  Italian  and  florid,  held  it  in, 
seeming  to  keep  the  whole  place  from  slipping  down- 
hill. From  the  lawn,  where  people  were  playing,  a 
tennis-ball  had  just  gone  over  the  coping.  They  looked 
over,  watching  it  roll  half  a  mile  down  steep  turf,  with 
precarious  persistence,  now  almost  motionless,  then 
again  quickening.     It  came  to  rest  in  a  ditch. 

Browne  let  his  breath  go.  "  In  the  crevasse !  "  he 
said. 

She  laughed.  For  a  moment  they  were  on  that  other 
mountain  again. 


150  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

"  It's  good  here,"  he  said,  looking  out,  with  rising 
gusto;  no  mere  exercise  now.  He  backed  away  two 
or  three  yards  from  the  balustrade ;  over  it,  then,  the 
first  thing  that  his  eye  met  was  a  windmill  at  work, 
two  miles  away,  low  on  the  wide  floor  between  two 
ranges  of  downs.  Beyond  it,  a  mile  further  off,  was 
another  windmill ;  a  third,  yet  a  mile  or  two  further 
away,  gleamed  intermittently,  like  a  revolving  light, 
some  bright  part  of  its  sails,  no  doubt,  catching  the 
westering  sun  at  a  certain  point  in  each  revolution. 
The  three  mills  measured  the  receding  plain ;  mile  be- 
hind mile  it  lay  stilled  with  autumn  and  distance,  only 
the  sails  moving.  He  stood  enriching  it  with  his  en- 
joyment. 

"  Is  nothing  flat  to  you?  "  she  said,  almost  pettishly. 

He  laughed.     "  All  that  plain  is !  " 

She  did  not  laugh.  To  her  sense  the  flatness  of  flat 
things  was  beginning  to  be  re-filled  with  the  power 
to  thrill  that  it  had  when  she  was  a  child  and  when 
wood  thrilled  her  fingers  because  it  was  tepid  and  iron 
because  it  was  cool.  She  felt  she  was  worked  on,  and 
some  resistent  sentinel  within  her  stood  to  its  arms. 
She  said,  almost  roughly,  "  How  moral  you  are ! ' 

He  was  puzzled.     "  I  moralize?  " 
'  You  '  find  good  in  everything '  anyhow." 

"  Good  fun?  There  is  a  good  lot.  Is  it  priggish  to 
like  it?" 

"  It's  a  rebuke  to  us  others." 

"Rebuke?  No.  Defiance.  Avaunt,  you  ascetics. 
It's  you  have  the  taint  of  saints  about  you." 

"We,  the  incurious,  unthankful — ?" 


THE  MORNINGS  WAR  151 

"  You  the  people  who  give  up,  who  lay  clown,  who 
go  without  things.*' 

"  Things  we  don't  want,  we're  so  blind  to  them." 

"  By  your  own  will,  isn't  it,  so  that  then  you  can 
walk  through  the  fair  and  not  gape  at  the  things  there, 
and  fiddles  can  play  and  you  not  want  to  dance  ?  ' 

"  I  love  dancing." 

"  Oh,  good !     Bad,  I  mean,  and  most  welcome." 

Slowly  and  not  by  regular  steps  they  made  their 
way  back  towards  frank  friendliness,  each  trying  the 
mind  of  the  other  and  finding  that  it  had  the  right 
resilience,  that  it  could  give  where  you  touched  and 
then  spring  back  into  shape.  "  I  suppose,"  she  said, 
without  petulance  now,  "  there's  a  time  to  dance  and 
a  time  to  refrain  from  dancing." 

"  None  to  refrain  from  enjoying,  one  way  or  other. 
Wouldn't  that  be  as  if  Adam  salted  the  garden?  " 

She  was  grave  again.  "Is  that  fair?  I  don't 
mean  to  me,  of  course.  I've  never  given  anything  up 
in  my  life.  All  I've  done  is  to  fail  to  like  splendid 
things — Rome  and  the  Alps  and  everything.  Still,  I 
know  there's  a  way  of  giving  up  things,  at  the  right 
time,  that  makes  it  what's  most  worth  doing  of  all — 
giving  up  food  and  health  even,  willingly? ' 

"  Unsouredly?     Do  they  love  giving  them  up?  " 

"  I'll  ask  you  that  when  you've  seen  them?  ' 

"Oh,  it's  your  friends  at  Cusheen?" 

"  They  could  have  been,  not  rich  of  course,  but  less 
poor.      They   could    have    had   help    in   their   fishing. 
They  gave  it  all  up." 
'•Why  on  earth?" 


152  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

She  winced  as  if  treated  rudely.  "  Perhaps  for  no 
reason  on  earth,"  she  said,  "  but  a  good  one  else- 
where— they  may  have  supposed,"  and  then  she  winced 
worse  at  her  own  lapse  towards  crossness  and  rhetoric. 
'''  Oh,  I  can't  tell  you  about  it,"  she  flurriedly  said,  and 
colored,  shamefaced  or  angry. 

He  looked  away  over  the  champaign,  giving  her 
time.  '  Two  windmills — three,"  he  counted  slowly 
aloud,  lest  silence  should  hang  too  heavily;  "  three  and 
— is  it  a  fourth,  but  not  working,  up  higher?  ' 

She  had  collected  herself.  "  That's  the  Mill  on  the 
Hill.  It's  deserted.  It  has  a  great  view  on  fine  nights : 
you  see  to  the  sea  and  to  London — gleams  on  the 
waves,  and  the  glow  over  London.    It  links  them." 

"Oh,  good!':  He  thought  of  Mullivant's  jewel- 
some  England,  threaded  on  such  strings. 

She  thought  of  the  Dent  Rouge.  "  You  would  like 
it.     Guy  must  arrange.     You  cross — when  ?  ': 

"  To  Dublin?    To-morrow  night." 

"  Guy  must  take  you  to-night.  I  must  see  him." 
She  looked  round.  '  He  ought  to  be  here ;  he  was  to 
have  come  here  straight  from  town,  with  a  friend." 

"Newman?" 

"  Yes." 

"  I  see  Newman  coming,  in  custody." 

With  a  quick  flinch,  as  if  snatching  clear  of  some 
foulness,  June  interposed  a  tall  bush  between  them 
and  Newman,  now  hobbling  nearer,  the  prey  of  a  vol- 
uble, loud  lady. 

'  I  think  it  so  hard,"  the  lady  was  saying,  "  to  know 
what  to  get  taught  to  one's  children — about  religion, 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  153 

you  know — in  the  way  of  a  special  belief,  you  know. 
If  only  Pip,  our  boy,  were  more  like  his  father !  Dear 
George  was  always  so  good  and  steady ;  he  never 
needed  any  religious  support." 

There  was  no  failing  to  hear  it ;  June's  eyes  and 
Browne's  met  on  the  vision  of  George's  established 
soul,  Browne's  twinkling  at  sight  of  that  fortress, 
June's  unamused,  only  scornful.  The  mother  made  no 
pause.  "  The  girls,  of  course,  must  be  taught  some- 
thing. With  all  this  spiritual  trouble  that  there  is, 
even  in  quite  nice  novels,  now,  it  may  be  so  painful 
for  a  young  girl  at  dinner,  or  at  a  dance,  if  she  has 
nothing  at  all  to  say  about  that  sort  of  thing." 

"  Feel  out  of  it,  eh?  '  Newman  filled  up  a  pause 
of  an  instant. 

'So  painfully!  And  then  the  world  is  so  full  of 
pain  already,  I  do  want  to  spare  my  darlings  any  I 
can ;  only  it's  so  hard  to  know  what  is  right! '' 

'  Sure  to  be  some  little  shilling  book  about  it,"  said 
Newman,  "  if  only  one  knew.  Or  what  d'you  say 
to — ?  "    The  next  words  were  blurred. 

The  lady  broke  in  penetratingly :  '  Oh,  don't  you 
know?    Dear  Miss  Hathersage  is  such  a  Catholic!  ' 

June  drew  off  at  the  name,  with  a  hot  cheek  and 
cold  voice,  hedged  with  proud  privacies.  '  There  is 
my  brother,"  she  said,  "  I'll  go  to  him.     Don't  come." 

For  a  moment  or  two  her  last  words  immobilized 
Browne.  They  were  imperious,  as  if  she  meant, 
"  There — it  is  talk  about  me.  Hear  the  worst."  What 
did  it  matter  to  her,  in  her  pride,  that  he  should  be 
planted  there,  eavesdropping? 


154  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

The  lady  was  babbling  on.  "  Why,  she  gets  red  if 
you  say  Roman  Catholic  just.  And,  if  she  were  I, 
she'd  simply  go  to  a  priest  and  ask  him  what  to  do, 
and  then  do  it,  and  then  if  it  went  wrong  it  wouldn't 
be  her  fault.  That's  what's  so  nice  for  them.  Oh, 
it's  so  cruel  to  have  to  think  out  all  these  things  for 
oneself.  I  do  really  feel  sometimes  the  Reformation 
must  have  been  all  a  mistake,  they  worry  me  so — or 
was  it  the  Renaissance  when  the  Catholics  split  off 
from  the  Church  of  England?  " 

"  I  'spect  both  helped,"  said  Newman,  cautiously. 

"  They're  sure  to  have,"  said  the  lady. 

Browne  had  marked  the  later  prattle  too  little  to 
smile.  Able  to  move  again  now,  he  went  to  greet  Guy, 
whom  June  had  left. 

Yes,  there  was  almost  the  fullest  of  moons  to-night, 
Guy  said;  Browne  must  certainly  see  the  big  view. 
"  Quite  a  thing  not  to  be  missed."  Guy  spoke  as  if  no 
one  who  had  failed  to  see  it  could  quite  know  how  trite 
the  world  was. 

Sunset  had  reddened  when  June  approached  Aubrey, 
people  were  leaving,  dew  falling.  '  You  heard?  "  she 
imperiously  asked,  as  if  an  hour  had  not  passed. 

"The  ribaldry?  Yes.  And  I've  met  Mr.  Roads 
since,  the  wonderful  husband.  He  offered  to  buy  me. 
I  fear  I  was  rude." 

She  broke  in.  She  was  august  with  an  exaltation 
of  wrath.  "  I  want  to  tell  you,"  she  said,  "  what  I — 
wouldn't — couldn't  just  now.  People  like  that  woman, 
rich,  idle  people — has  Mr.  Roads  told  you,  they  own 
all  the  basest  papers  there  are? — luxurious  people — 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  155 

oh,  I  know  I'm  one — may  talk  as  she  does,  but  at 
Cusheen  the  women  would  see  their  sons  drown  before 
they'd  be  helped  by  any  one  who  had  broken  vows  of 
religion.  And  I  love  them  for  it,  I  love  them.  I'll  tell 
you—" 

She  paused,  shaken,  as  if  it  were  too  difficult,  even 
now.  But  she  looked  taller,  seemed  to  have  straight- 
ened out  and  shot  up  like  a  flame ;  like  a  flame  her 
beauty  rose  too,  flushed  up  into  the  cheek  and  blazed 
in  the  eye ;  it  warmed  and  might  burn,  was  splendor 
and  danger,  lit  from  some  lamp  high  out  of  sight  and 
rooting  down  for  its  strength  to  central  fires  of  passion 
under  the  earth.  Browne  was  awed ;  this  was  her  real 
life,  then — so  he  mused ;  she  had  hold  of  infinite  things 
by  that  old  handle,  odd-looking  to  him,  of  a  creedful 
of  dogmas.  What  matter  the  shape  of  the  handle, 
though,  if  only  it  held?  He  said,  "You  are  chival- 
rous," letting  the  words  go,  unintended,  like  a  held 
breath. 

She  looked  down  from  the  height  of  her  queenliness, 
shamefaced  a  little.  Had  she  been  ranting?  "We 
ought  to  be,"  she  answered  humbly,  touching  the  cord 
of  some  lay  fringe  of  a  Roman  Order  that  went  round 
her  waist,  "we  belted  knights;"  she  smiled  ruefully. 
Had  she  been  boasting?  That  was  her  silencing 
thought  while  Browne  was  thinking  what  an  earth's 
wonder  she  looked,  with  that  noble  confusion  quench- 
ing the  glow  still  aflame  where  a  noble  pride  had  lit  it ! 
She  did  not  go  on. 

'  The  garden  is  empty !  "  she  cried  in  amazement. 
She  had  come  back  to  herself.     A  star  was  blinking 


156  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

out  bravely,  alone  in  the  violet  vault  over  the  darken- 
ing weald.  Her  father  was  wrapping  his  throat  in  the 
hall.  They  drove  back  through  lanes  of  somber  en- 
chantment, where  flat  shapes  of  motionless  trees  lay 
black  on  the  crimson  west  whither  the  homing  horse, 
sped  by  his  own  single  thought,  hastened  them  eagerly. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

"  A  man  to  whom  God  hath  given  riches,  wealth,  and  honor, 
so  that  he  wanteth  nothing  for  his  soul  of  all  that  he  desireth, 
yet  God  giveth  him  not  power  to  eat  thereof." 

Ecclesiastes  vi.  2. 

THE  dining-room  at  the  End  House  might  have 
made  a  kitchen  in  heaven,  it  was  so  cosily  chaste 
in  its  lowliness  of  attire,  so  purged  of  decorative  sin. 
White  wood;  many  white  tiles;  white  curtains — not 
of  lace;  rush-bottomed  chairs  fastidiously  simple;  all 
along  one  wall,  a  dresser,  with  plates  on  it,  ranged  like 
their  toiling  kin  elsewhere,  but  these  had  leisure  and 
were  of  breeding;  some  had  histories;  one  recorded, 
like  a  medal,  an  old  sea-fight.  Browne  was  now  told 
things  about  it  not  printed  in  books  but  only  borne 
down  the  stream  of  a  ruling  caste's  gossip,  its  heir- 
looms of  intramural  tattle — how  that  fight's  hero,  a 
darling  of  credulous  England's,  had  flown  a  white  flag 
in  another  battle,  the  next  year,  with  an  actress  of 
small  parts,  a  notable  pirate  in  that  age.  Mr.  Hather- 
sage  told  it  with  nice  touches  of  irony,  reticent  sym- 
pathy, allowance.  "  '  But  on  the  field  ' — how  does  it 
go?  ';  He  ended  the  tale  with  a  modest  sham-failing 
of  memory.     "  Is  it — 

"  '  But  on  the  field  of  love  alone 
The  glory  lies  in  flying  '  ?  " 
157 


158  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

He  was  talking  his  best  to-night  about  the  great 
world  that  he  knew.  Through  the  glass  that  he  put  to 
Browne's  eyes  it  heaved  into  sight  like  some  old  moon, 
waste  and  huge,  a  cold  globe  of  spent  craters.  A 
Queen's  page,  an  attache,  a  member  of  Parliament, 
cousin  and  private  secretary  to  a  Premier — he  had 
been  all  these;  many  good  things,  as  men  count,  had 
come  up  to  him  of  themselves,  to  be  tasted,  and  all  had 
proved  themselves  middling.  He  had  been  at  the  hubs 
of  the  most  dazzlingly  whirling  of  wheels  and  had 
found  at  each  a  core  of  slowness,  not  the  concentration 
of  the  speeding  glory  of  the  tire,  but  its  retardation, 
down  to  tedium.  He  flowed  out  in  anecdotes  now. 
"  '  If  you  want  to  love  your  kind,'  :'  he  would  quote 
between  one  and  the  next,  "  '  you  must  not  expect  too 
much  from  them.'  All  his  stories  were,  surely,  re- 
ductive of  over-high  hopes.  He  had  known  "  every- 
body worth  knowing,"  had  heard  the  most  famously 
saintly  of  laymen  bully  his  wife,  had  opened  the  letter 
in  which  a  sage  asked  for  a  knighthood,  and  seen 
earth-shaking  statesmen  pushed,  pulled,  or  bodily 
borne  through  their  seismic  labors  by  mute,  inglorious 
clerks. 

"  Moses'  arms  were  held  up,  after  all,"  he  would 
add,  in  excuse.  He  had  no  spite,  no  bias  of  creed,  class 
or  race.  A  Roman  prelate  was  hero  to  one  of  the 
stories:  "To  hell  with  you!'  this  divine  had  once 
said  to  his  Irish  chaplain,  from  whom  the  story  had 
come  with  the  note — "  I  never  before  heard  his  Grace 
say  the  like  of  that,  drunk  or  sober."  Or  some  royal 
duke  was  so  frugal  as  not  to  give  people  enough  to  eat 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  159 

when  they  dined  at  his  house,  nor  light  to  eat  it  by; 
"  You  used  to  be  bidden  to  darkness  and  gnashing  of 
teeth."  Wherever  some  illusion  of  some  one's  youth 
might  reasonably  have  perished,  the  round,  rimmed, 
hedge-sparrow  eyes  would  brighten  frostily  for  a  mo- 
ment. 

As  dinner  went  on,  the  rest  fell  silent,  or  only  put  in, 
now  and  then,  some  ministering  query.  In  pauses  the 
waiting  butler  seemed  like  stillness  in  motion ;  light 
airs  had  begun  to  roam  round  the  house  at  dark; 
they  rose  on  the  ear  as  if  thrown  into  relief  by  those 
feet's  quietude.  Guy  was  silent  contentedly;  surveys 
of  mankind,  every  man  steeped  in  his  humor,  and  none 
momentous  or  rare,  were  the  food  Guy  had  been  raised 
on.  Two  brothers,  still  in  the  raising,  were  at  table 
too,  boys  of  twelve  and  fourteen  in  mere  count  of 
years  and  inches,  but  old  already,  in  many  parts  of 
the  soul,  as  Ecclesiastes  or  autumn;  grave,  rational, 
quenched,  too  skeptical  even  to  disbelieve  with  a  will, 
they  had  outgrown  both  ardor  and  rudeness.  They 
cracked  nuts  sedately,  and  listened,  and  aged. 

June  had  become  silent  too,  more  enigmatically. 
Her  eyes  were  open  and  blank  as  glassed  seas,  her  lips 
symbols  unused;  so,  BrowTne  thought,  might  one  paint 
the  face  of  Japheth  or  Shem  when  he  would  not  see  his 
father's  nakedness.  Once  their  looks  met,  his 
staunchly  vacant,  as  if,  for  all  he  knew,  she,  too,  might 
be  sere,  like  her  family  of  yellow  leaves,  and  not 
merely  loyal  to  them;  her  looks  withheld  as  proudly 
the  least  gleam  of  thanks  to  his  eyes  for  offering  her 
no  ray  of  comprehension.     Outside,  as  their  emptied 


160  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

eyes  met,  the  wind  was  sniffing  at  the  house;  a  rose- 
bough  knocked  on  a  pane  lightly.  He  fancied  her  ears 
caught  at  the  sounds:  could  something  in  her  be 
stifling,  in  this  distilled  air,  for  that  rude  and  strong 
one?  No  sign.  Her  father's  voice,  like  a  clear,  tiny 
bell,  tinkled  on;  Guy's  laugh,  with  its  musical,  infinites- 
imal chimes,  still  struck  in  to  help  out  the  case  against 
having  one's  breath  ever  taken  away,  and  the  little  boys 
listened  and  cracked  more  nuts  without  greed,  and 
ripened  towards  the  grave. 

Dinner  over,  the  boys  went  to  bed  from  the  half- 
lighted  drawing-room  where  Mr.  Hathersage  shuffled 
softly  from  point  to  point,  with  the  flow  of  his  talk 
falling  slack,  till  he  faded  away  almost  insensibly,  like 
a  cadence,  into  his  study;  its  rose-shaded  lamp  on  a 
letter-strewn  table  shown  through  an  open  door  be- 
yond a  darkling  second  drawing-room,  as  harbor  lights 
shine  across  intervening  seas.  He  left  the  doors  open, 
and  so,  from  their  own  half-light,  the  rest  saw  through 
the  medial  darkness  to  where  he  sat,  image-like,  in  a 
luminous  niche.  Soon  Guy — he  was  sorry — must  go 
off  to  read  Roman  Law,  with  a  coach  shared  by  New- 
man and  him,  at  Brunt  Farm,  where  Newman  had 
rooms.  When  Guy  had  gone,  and  some  topic  with 
him,  June  plunged  at  another  abruptly,  with  forced 
airiness,  like  one  who  keeps  things  going  for  a  wager. 
"About  Brabburn?     Is  it  appalling?" 

"  It's  glorious."  He  put  it  high,  by  instinct,  to  bind 
himself  over  to  fight  out  his  line. 

She  said  "  Oh?  "  rather  coldly,  as  if  to  ask,  not  "  Is 


THE  MORNINGS  WAR  161 

that  chaff?"  but   "What  special  line  of  chaff  may 
that  be?" 

He  tried  to  laugh.    "  A  lepers'  island,  you'd  heard  ?  ' 

"  No,  but — well,  lusterless." 

••  Waterloo  was,  till  they  fought  there." 

"  But — Brabburn  !    A  by-word  !    Tennyson,  Ruskin, 
Thackeray,  Meredith  even — how  they  all  scorned  it! ' 
She  warmed  to  the  conflict,  finding  it  real. 

So  did  he.  "  Dante  scorned  Genoa;  yet  Garibaldi 
came  from  it."  He  winced  at  this  slip — to  a  Catholic — 
made  in  his  heat.     "  Columbus  too,"  he  added  hastily. 

His  visible  twinge  of  compunction  made  her  lower 
her  point  till  it  passed.  "  Father,"  she  said,  "  had  a 
friend,  once,  from  Brabburn,  a  merchant.  They  were 
both  in  Parliament  then.  He  stayed  here  when  I  was 
a  child.  Telegrams  came  for  him  all  day ;  the  baker's 
wife,  who  keeps  the  post-office,  was  ill  afterwards.  He 
was  '  nice  '  ;  a  little  wooden,  but  quite  '  nice,'  only — " 

Browne,  too,  re-engaged.  "  Only — from  Brabburn. 
See  how  it  clings.  If  you  could  say  '  I  am  from  Brab- 
burn,' your  friends  would  say  in  a  strained,  gentle 
voice,  '  Ah! — from  Brabburn?  '  and  try  to  be  kind  to 
you,  as  if  you  had  said  '  My  grandfather  was  hanged  ' 
and  they  said  '  Oh?  '  softly  and  quitted  the  subject — 
stole  out  on  tiptoe.  Or  they'd  say  '  Well,  and  how 
do  you  like  your  life  in  Brabburn? '  to  show  they  knew 
you  were  a  missionary  and  not  really  one  of  the  can- 
nibals." 

"  Would  that  be  a  happiness?  ' 

"The  happiness;  wouldn't  it?  Brabburn  is  Lon- 
don before  they'd  built  Westminster  Abbey;  Oxford 


1G2  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

before  universities  came;  it's  pre-Shakespeare  Strat- 
ford. All  the  overblown  flowers  are  seeding  all  round 
it;  it  isn't  out  yet;  it's  coming.  The  big  things  are 
all  to  be  done  there  still — not  just  the  crowding  up 
after  they're  done,  the  commemorating  and  gushing." 

June  had  tinder  for  that  spark;  she  could  light  at 
the  thought  of  being  in  at  the  painful  birth  of  a  great 
glory.  Yet  she  must  muster  against  it  what  forces 
she  might ;  she  could  not  tell  why ;  some  half-heard  in- 
ternal imperative  set  her  throwing  up  dams  against 
some  half-apprehended  flood.  "  The  big  things?  "  she 
asked. 

"  The  undone  ones." 

"What  are  they?" 

'  If  one  could  say,  one  could  do  them.  They're  all 
novel,  indefinable,  aren't  they,  like  building  Rome — 
till  they're  done?  What's  the  South  Pole  like?  To 
say  is  to  get  there." 

"  One  could  sail  south ;  one  could  start  anyhow. 
But  how  start,  even,  at  Brabburn?  " 

"  Why  not  write  every  day  in  a  newspaper  for  forty 
years?  " 

"Oh!" 

"You  disdain  it?" 

"  Not  what  you're  going  to  do,  at  Cusheen,  just  for 
once.     But  then — " 

'One  mustn't  wholly  'sink  into  a  journalist'? 
'  Mere  ephemeral  writing,'  and  so  on?  Isn't  that  just 
'Ah — from  Brabburn!'  over  again?  A  whole  craft, 
almost,  is  unmade  as  yet,  waiting,  crying  out  to  be 
brought  to  life,  as  the  place  does." 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  1G3 

"  But  can  it  be  ever  made  noble?  Think  of  the — 
She  named  Roads'  last  triumph  in  marketing  mean 
ness  fresh  daily. 

"  Can  flesh  face  steel?    Think  how  sheep  run  from 

it!" 

She  gave  a  small  confident  laugh  which  might  have 
meant,  "  Don't  deliver  your  whole  cause  into  my 
hands  by  extravagance."  "  Don't  say  that  the  work  is 
like  a  soldier's,"  she  said. 

"  No.  Drums  and  bugles  don't  play  while  you're 
doing  it." 

"  It's  not  facing  death." 

"  The  death-rate  in  Brabburn  is  thrice  that  of  Alder- 
shot." 

"  But— in  war?" 

"  Brabburn  babies  died  faster  last  summer  than  our 
troops  did  at  Colenso." 

She  chilled,  hating  the  line  of  thought.  "  You  be- 
little brave  men?  " 

"  I  honor  them  even  up  to  the  height  of  being  sure 
they  chafe  at  the  thought,  when  medals  and  orders 
come — '  They  burnt  Joan  of  Arc ;  they  put  Wallace  to 
death ;  they  lionize  me.'  Wasn't  that  General  Neville 
you  spoke  with,  to-day,  at  the  party,  the  old,  sad 
Bayard?" 

"  My  god-father;  yes." 

"  I  saw  him  in  uniform  once.  You  have,  of  course. 
You  remember  his  coat  was  too  small  for  all  the  medals 
and  stars  and  crosses  ?  What  a  life  to  have  had !  And 
can't  you  fancy  him  now  looking  back  over  it,  asking 
himself  is  there  any  last  crown  of  joy  that  he  has 


164  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

missed,  and  saying,  '  Yes,  one — to  have  had  all  those 
things  to  do,  and  no  one  applaud  '?  " 

She  could  not  fancy  it :  sex,  with  its  specialized  gen- 
erosity, would  not  let  her;  had  their  talk  been  of  some 
achievement  and  peril  kept  for  women  alone,  she  could 
have  done  it :  but  then  he  could  not  have.  Now  he  was 
eager;  he  would  not  give  in;  and  the  lamp  had  burnt 
propitiously  low;  the  sinking  fire  looked  old;  he  pressed 
on:  "  Seems,  somehow,  as  if  a  brave  act  began  to  go 
bad  as  soon  as  praise  forms  on  it — when  the  flies  buzz 
up  and  swarm  on  it — all  the  little  timorous  people. 
They  soil  it ;  they  would  have  called  the  man  a  crank, 
perhaps  even  a  sneak,  if  they'd  seen  him  go  at  it,  at 
first ;  when  it's  done  he's  some  one  whose  ship  has 
come  in ;  he  has  broken  the  bank ;  he  has  come  off,  and 
all  cowards  swear  by  him.  They  can  be  dodged, 
though.  I  found  that  out  at  Brabburn.  There's  work 
done  that  nobody  daubs  with  praise,  and  people  are 
used  up  in  doing  it  well,  in  the  dark,  and  sneered  at 
for  being  staunch.  They  get  battles  to  fight  where 
public  opinion's  for  running  away,  and  the  man  who 
runs  best  is  given  a  title :  a  man  who  ran  till  he 
dropped  might  get  a  grave  in  the  Abbey." 

At  each  rhetorical  sentence's  end  he  thought  "  Have 
I  done  for  myself  in  her  mind?"  and  then  made  the 
next  more  provocative  still,  doggedly  putting  his  all  in 
jeopardy,  as  a  man  searches  a  lonely  house  for  armed 
burglars,  forcing  himself  from  room  to  room.  She 
was  not  with  him  in  sympathy;  that  he  could  see.  To 
her  the  martial  qualities  were  of  blood  royal;  they  had 
divine  rights;  she  hated  any  upstart  virtue  that  dared 


THE  MORNINGS  WAR  105 

to  measure  itself  against  them.  And  yet,  he  was  giv- 
ing himself  away;  she  could  see  that;  it  challenged  her 
own  spirit;  besides,  he  had  raised  the  image  of  a  lost 
battle  fought  out  to  the  end ;  and  that  thrilled,  though 
only  an  image.  So  she  said,  with  some  haughtiness, 
yet  half-relentfully  :  "  Does  the  world  contain  such  a — 
journalist?  "  getting  the  last  word  out  with  a  gulp  at 
its  evil  taste. 

"Two,  Bruntwood  and  Mullivant.  You  never 
heard  of  them?  " 

"  No." 

"  Though  your  brother  employs  them  ?  Good !  See 
how  nameless  journalists  are!  ' 

She  was  forestalled.  What  he  said  was  just  what 
she  would  have  said,  but  she  would  have  meant  "  In- 
glorious trade !  "  And  now  she  could  not  say  it.  She 
could  not  even  think  it.  It  was  as  though  he  had 
looked  past  her,  over  her  shoulders,  to  some  one  be- 
hind, more  generous,  and  she  had  turned  to  see  who  it 
was  and  found  that  this  other  person  was  she  herself, 
her  more  real  self,  and  that  what  she  had  taken  to  be 
herself  before  was  only  a  screen,  an  outworn,  second- 
rate  version  of  her,  put  up  for  show  or  defense.  '  But 
what  do  they  do  that's  so  fine?  "  she  asked  hastily,  in 
her  first  chafing  at  this  disablement  of  her  outworks. 

"  Just  sit  at  a  desk  every  night,  snubbing  baseness. 
It  canvasses  them." 

"To  do  what?" 

"  To  tell  people  they're  right  when  they're  not." 
He  held  in  the  rhetoric  now,  a  defiant  instinct  of 
straightness  shunning  the  use  of  the  jockeying  word 


166  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

where  it  might  not  hinder,  but  help.    "  Not  very  thrill- 
ing? '     He  prompted  her  to  be  unmoved  if  she  would. 
'  Well,"  she  said  suspensively,  out  of  her  inward 
confusions  of  rearrangement,  "  no." 

'  No  rushing  out  of  the  ranks,  with  armies  ad- 
miring? " 

"  I  suppose  they're  esteemed  in  their  own  profes- 
sion," she  ventured,  attempting  the  austere  tone  proper 
to  safe  assumption. 

"  You  spoke  of  the  ,"  he  said.     "  That's  the 

head  of  the  trade — Mr.  Roads'  last  paper.  How  could 
Mr.  Roads  esteem  people  who  don't  care  to  sell  lies? 
If  praise  soils,  the  game  is  clean  as  the  sea.  Oh,  you 
want  Birkenhead  decks?  You'll  get  'em  to  stand  on, 
but  you'll  be  alone,  or  with  one  or  two  more,  and  the 
rest  of  your  corps  sneering  at  you  '  Crank ! '  '  Fad- 
dist ! '  '  It's  moral  cowardice,  really ! '  while  they 
swarm  into  the  boats.  It'll  be  keeping  straight  gratis 
— just  the  bare  bones  of  decency." 

He  spoke  as  if  it  were  she  at  the  cross  roads:  she 
answered  as  if  it  were  he;  she  tempted  him. 

"  If  you  lived  as  a  soldier  you  might  die  like  one." 

'  A  ball  in  the  brain,  you  mean,  at  the  head  of  a 
charge  ?  " 

"  Would  you  give  that  up  too  ?  " 

:  You'd  have  to.  I  don't  believe  Enoch  miracles 
come  off  in  Brabburn.  Cancer,  a  pain  in  the  heart  or 
spine  for  a  few  years,  a  week's  suffocation — there's 
no  bolting  from  them.  You'd  have  to  face  death — 
the  true  horrors  of  it,  the  '  natural  '  ones."  He  still 
forced  the  note  of  offense,  lest  he  should  shirk  it.    She 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  167 

never  hedged  and  he  would  not ;  better  be  cleanly 
maimed  by  the  utter  loss  of  her  than  gain  toleration 
by  bating  a  jot  of  his  distasteful  ardors. 

Surely  enough  her  air  was  one  of  distaste.  She 
was  chill ily  bewildered.  Not  that,  like  quite  vulgar 
souls,  she  hugged  in  mean  panic  what  was  current — 
the  filed  judgments  and  registered  valuations.  They 
were  worth  something:  spots  of  dry  ground  amid 
waters,  at  least  they  gave  foothold.  But  June  had 
the  fortitude  of  equity;  she  could  be  harsh  to  her  own 
fears  and  coldly  refuse  to  deny  that  footholds,  even 
one's  own,  may  have  to  go  sometimes,  with  none  in 
sight  to  take  their  places;  a  haughty  fairness  ruled 
her  and  scorned  the  cheap  conceit  of  finality  in  her  own 
old  appraisements  and  took  it  for  granted  that  what 
any  one  else  said  for  a  view  that  was  not  hers  must  be 
less  than  the  most  that  he  could  say  for  it  if  he  would. 
But  she  was  bewildered  and  disarranged.  Things  that 
he  said  made  queer  new  calls  on  her ;  they  assumed  she 
was  a  person,  detached,  like  a  nation,  with  frontiers, 
a  being  autonomous,  equal,  free  and  yet  novelly  bur- 
dened, bound  to  make  out  for  herself  what  was  right 
and  what  wrong  and  to  stand  by  whatever  result  she 
came  to.  June  dismayedly  felt  that  she  never  yet  had 
been  a  person,  only  a  piece  of  the  flesh  of  a  family,  and 
a  cell  in  its  brain.  What  thought  of  hers  had  she  not 
taken  on  trust?  Which  of  her  admirations  had  not 
been  formed  by  proxy?  Was  there,  of  all  the  things 
she  had  said  to-day,  one  that  had  not  been  spoken  by 
rote? 

When  June  was  dismayed  her  face  and  voice  would 


168  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

grow  icy ;  she  looked  most  distantly  regal  when  every- 
thing in  her  was  praying  for  help,  or  running  to  and 
fro,  seeking  a  life-belt,  or  abasing  itself  in  deep  dusts 
of  contrition.  It  was  beyond  Browne  to  read  her 
then.  He  did  not  see  that  the  frozen  aspect  was  help- 
lessness steeling  itself  not  to  wince.  He  only  saw  her 
austere  and  spiritually  tall,  looking  securely  out  from 
untold  reserves  of  cold  certitude. 

So  for  a  silent  minute  each  of  them  thought  how 
awesomely  strong  a  case  it  must  be  that  could  count 
for  so  much  in  the  other's  mind,  till  Mr.  Hathersage, 
brushing  the  carpet's  nap  with  soft  feline  pads,  came 
across  to  bring  them  a  find  from  his  night's  reading, 
a  sight  of  the  life  of  the  old  British  India — how  envoys 
would  set  out  on  missions  to  courts  many  hundred 
miles  off,  and  not  move  in  the  heat  of  the  day  nor  in 
the  dark  of  the  night;  a  few  miles  on  a  walking  ele- 
phant's back  before  breakfast,  and  then  the  long  day's 
peace.  He  read  to  find  such  things  and  show  them  to 
people,  but  also  to  keep  up  the  good  accent  with  which 
he  could  talk  to  many  kinds  of  learned  men  in  the 
dialects  of  their  own  several  studies,  as  he  talked 
French  and  Italian.  He  read  out  cooingly,  resting 
himself  on  the  thought  of  that  quaint  leisure,  unlike 
to-day's  rackety  haste. 

They  listened  to  the  urbane  treason  to  life;  they  did 
not  let  their  looks  meet.  She,  as  the  helpless  will 
sometimes  do,  tried  to  be  angry  with  Browne ;  who, 
after  all,  was  this  stranger,  that  he  should  be  let  into 
knowledge  of  what  was  failing  under  her?  Browne 
caught  no  glimpse  of  that;  for  all  he  saw,  she  might 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  169 

be  heart  and  soul  with  her  father  now,  and  life,  which 
is  always  to-day,  would  never  be  anything  to  her, 
either,  but  some  bawling  cad  who  must  be  endured  with 
only  such  compensations  as  irony  has  for  its  right 
users.  Then  Mr.  Hathersage  yawned  with  a  candor 
so  child-like  that  it  was  not  rude;  rather,  a  confidence; 
he  seemed  to  have  gone,  with  his  guest,  behind  Madam 
Courtesy's  back,  and  to  trust  his  guest  not  to  tell  her. 
"  Youth,  youth!  "  he  crooned,  with  a  little  shiver,  on 
hearing  about  their  plan  for  the  mill :  to  go  they  were 
only  waiting  for  Guy.  "  '  Lusum  it  Maecenas,  dor- 
mitum  ego,'  he  murmured,  and  crept  up  to  bed  as 
ten  struck. 

June,  moving  about  to  replace  a  used  book,  stood 
still  for  a  second;  she  looked  up,  through  a  window 
and  through  the  glass  roof  of  a  greenhouse  outside. 
Browne's  eyes,  following  hers,  saw  a  round  moon, 
remote  and  abstract  beyond  the  filtering  screen  of 
double  glass  and  interposed  room,  ride  high  in  bare 
skies. 

"  What  a  night ! '  he  said.  Indeed  Lorenzo  and 
Jessica  might  have  capped  ecstasies  in  it. 

She  said  "  Yes,"  with  a  reluctance,  as  though  her 
mind  flinched  at  the  scent  of  some  twilight  idea  not  yet 
made  out,  as  horses  will  sweat  and  hold  back,  at  night, 
with  a  dim  but  positive  sense  of  the  approach  of  some- 
thing of  which  all  they  know  is  the  way  their  ears 
twitch  and  their  breath  goes. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

"A  dream  that  a  lion  had  dreamed 
Till  the  wilderness  cried  aloud, 
A  secret  between  you  two, 

Between  the  proud  and  the  proud." 

W.  B.  Yeats. 

THEY  set  out.  It  was  calm  now;  in  the  stillness 
they  heard  the  owls  calling  and  answering,  far 
off  and  near,  in  firm  notes;  one  huge  inquisitive  fellow 
came  floating  over  their  heads  in  a  chain  of  linked 
circles  that  moved  with  them,  lying  outspread  on  the 
air  without  sound  or  effort.  They  passed  through  a 
hamlet  sleeping  its  deepest  already  against  the  coming 
of  daylight  and  work;  only  in  one  or  two  cottages, 
ruled,  as  June  knew,  by  babies,  did  lighted  panes  make 
yellow  squares  against  the  milky  radiance  that  filled 
outer  space.  Past  the  hamlet  they  toiled  up  a  path  in 
loose  sand  to  the  edge  of  the  Hurtwood,  a  huge  com- 
mon, miles  square,  of  pine,  gorse  and  heather  capri- 
ciously patterned  out,  here  a  few  acres  of  one,  and 
then  another. 

The  first  mile  of  the  three  to  the  mill  they  walked 
almost  silently.  Guy  smoked,  by  June's  leave ;  June 
laved  her  cheeks  in  the  cool  air — they  had  dust  and 
heat  on  them,  she  felt ;  dust  of  her  father's  and 
brother's  probing  and  peering  about  among  things  that 
turned  dusty  under  their  hands  at  their  incantatory 

170 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  171 

murmur  of  "  Yes — everywhere  cobwebs!  "  heat  of  her 
inner  fight  against  giving  them  up,  those  two — and 
against  not  giving  them  up.  Oh,  it  was  all  heat  and  a 
maze,  and  unbearable  things  calling  out  to  be  done, 
this  way  and  that :  impossibles  had  to  be  chosen  among. 

By  the  end  of  the  mile  she  thought  she  had  put 
things  in  order  within.  She  tested  it — tried  how  well 
she  could  make  talk  of  trifles — of  Italy,  Oxford,  the 
Temple,  where  Guy  now  lived  and  Aubrey  had  meant 
to.  She  thought  she  was  getting  on  well.  As  they 
walked,  the  mill,  now  in  sight,  black  on  the  sky-line, 
bulked  always  larger  and  higher.  June  pattered  away 
at  her  skimmy  stuff;  had  Aubrey  noticed,  the  air  was 
warm  where  the  pines  were,  but  it  chilled  at  once  where 
the  gorse  began,  and  was  it  not  sure  to  be  fine  all  night  ? 
— the  pheasants  were  roosting  far  out  on  the  boughs. 
She  scarcely  waited  for  answers.  She  clung  nervously 
to  the  lead,  the  social  command,  the  hostess's  suze- 
rainty over  people's  relations. 

The  mill  rose  high  out  of  pines,  with  tough  old 
heather  under  them,  leathery  stems  and  broomy 
sprays ;  feet  caught  in  them  or  slipped  on  them ;  it  was 
a  breathless  stumble  up  the  last  slope ;  even  June's  vol- 
uble trepidation  was  put  to  silence;  before  they  had 
reached  the  top  Guy,  the  man  of  inaction,  was  puff- 
ing. Arrived  at  the  door  he  dropped  on  a  long  bench 
beside  it.  Many  farmers  had  polished  the  seat  already 
a  century  since,  sitting  there  to  talk  of  Boney  and  how 
the  great  war  went,  while  the  meal  that  they  had  come 
for  was  being  ground  out  to  the  end. 

"  For    me,"    fluted    Guy,    "  enough    of    ambition. 


172  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

J'y  suis,  j'y  reste.  In,  you  others;  follow  aloft  the 
phantom  of  aesthetic  repletion.  Here,  below,  man 
wants  but  little — a  warm  coat,  tobacco,  woolly  gloves 
— the  means  of  life  and  of  contemplation.  I  have 
them.     In,  my  friends;  leave  me." 

'  Oh,  Guy!"  June  broke  out  to  upbraid,  and  then 
stopped  in  dismay  at  her  own  dismay  and  trod  down 
as  a  weakness  the  instinct  that  had  cried  out. 

In  at  the  little  unfastened  door  the  two  stooped, 
with  Guy's  last  benediction  on  their  attire  amid  the 
dusty  hazards  of  the  interior :  forty  years  had  the  mill 
been  disused.  They  lit  match  after  match;  they  picked 
a  way  across  the  rotten  boards  of  the  floor  to  the  first 
of  the  three  ladders  leading  up  from  story  to  story. 

'  Ought  to  be  chockful  of  tramps,"  he  said  at  one 
pause.  They  listened.  No  sound  came,  of  moving  or 
snoring.  Each  heard  only  the  other's  breath  rise  and 
fall  in  its  own  rhythm.     "  Harvest  late,  perhaps." 

:  Yes,  they'll  be  all  in  the  barns,"  she  said  quickly, 
wanting  to  know,  by  the  sound  of  her  voice,  that  she 
was  at  ease.  Strange  things  followed.  In  that  domed 
bell  of  bricks  one's  voice  rang;  hers,  when  so  mag- 
nified, seemed  to  herself  like  some  private  gesture  spied 
upon  with  a  telescope.  Why  ?  What  were  the  words 
themselves  ?  Nothing.  That  was  the  trouble  :  the  null- 
ness  of  words  was  ceasing  to  avail;  screens  were  fall- 
ing; speech,  the  old  veil,  without  which  the  mind  might 
be  naked  and  shamed,  was  lifting  like  mist. 

They  had  to  walk  the  floor  daintily,  not  to  drop 
through  to  the  cellarage.  One  board  in  two  had  been 
stripped  off,  to  cook  some  past  wanderer's  supper  or  to 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  173 

warm  supperless  hands.  The  moon  gave  no  help ;  all 
it  did  was  to  baffle,  leaking  through  chinks  of  the  shut- 
tered windows  to  play  freakish  fantasies  of  spots  and 
streaks  before  their  feet;  once  it  tricked  June  into 
putting  a  foot  through  the  crumbling  paste  of  lath  and 
plaster  between  two  cross  beams.  She  gave  the  slight- 
est quick  cry  and  then  snatched  back,  before  she  stood 
safe,  the  hand  that  she  had  held  out  and  he  taken. 

"  Oh,  let  us  get  up,"  she  said  oppressedly,  "  out  of 
this  hole,"  and  cut  off  his  next  words  as  if  they  might 
hit  her.    "  Do  let  us  hurry,"  she  pressed. 

They  hurried,  and  clambered  at  last  out  into  the  air 
through  a  window-like  door,  and  stood  on  a  ledge  of 
lead  that  ran  round  the  base  of  the  roof,  leaning  their 
backs  against  the  lead  dome,  with  the  gawky  sails 
above  and  below  them  fixed  at  the  angles  which  chance 
first,  and  then  rust  more  rigidly,  had  ordered  for  their 
last  quiescence.  As  they  leant  he  heard  her  breath's 
troubled  stir ;  it  was  like  some  small  animal  struggling 
silently. 

"You're  fagged?"  he  asked,  and,  quick  in  alarm, 
"giddy?" 

"  No,  no!  "  she  jerked  out,  with  impatience,  not  at 
him,  but  at  the  wild  Daphne  in  her  that  could  have 
leaped  clear  from  their  ledge  into  space.  She  chid  it 
down — vain,  immodest  timidity;  shame  on  its  presag- 
ing! 

"  Look !  "  she  said,  ruling  her  voice.  "  What  we 
came  for !  '  She  pointed.  From  east  and  south,  a 
mile  or  two  off,  there  ran  out  to  meet  one  another  two 
long-backed  hills,  black  masses,  and  then  they  stopped 


174  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

before  meeting  and  dropped  sHarply  down  to  the  floor 
of  the  great  southern  weald,  leaving  between  them  a 
space  like  the  bright  gap  that  is  cut  out  of  the  dark 
when  the  curtain  goes  up  on  a  stage.  The  gap  was 
living  with  light ;  beyond  it  the  moon's  full  lamp  hung 
high  over  the  plain,  where  ground  mists,  visionary  in 
this  light,  were  afloat  on  illuminated  meadows. 

He  made  some  sound,  not  of  words,  and  she  forced 
a  light  tone.  "  Docs  that  mean  you  feel  just  a  kind  of 
balked  willingness  to  be  charmed?  The  feeling  one 
has  at  a  Baedeker  place  with  three  asterisks?  I'm 
sorry.  I  shouldn't  have  trumpeted  so."  She  rushed 
on;  she  had  to  be  talking;  what  might  not  be  heard 
if  a  stillness  came,  what  flood  topping  its  banks? 
Low,  rolling  pine  music  was  round  them :  she  clutched 
at  the  topic.  "  Isn't  it  like  the  noise  of  London,  far 
off,  heard  from  Kensington  Gardens — the  middle  of 
them?" 

"  Yes." 

"  Do  you  know,  it  never  quite  ceases?  There's  no 
air  so  still?  " 

"No?" 

She  kept  her  voice  sounding.  "  Strange,  how  easy 
it  is  to  tell  that  soughing  noise  from  the  murmuring 
of  beeches!  " 

"  Yes,  or  from  dry  grass  when  it  shrills." 

She  had  wished  him  to  talk,  but  now,  when  he  did, 
there  sprang  up  in  her,  sudden,  touching,  disarming,  a 
sureness  that  he  too  was  doing  what  she  was;  he  too 
was  far  out  at  sea,  as  alone  and  unhelped  as  she,  on  his 
own  little  improvised  raft  of  words,  the  first  comers  to 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  175 

hand,  all  that  he  had  to  put  between  self-mastery  and 
deep  waters.  Her  peril  drew  back;  she  felt,  for  the 
moment,  sorry  only  for  him ;  she  saw  him  a  child  that 
has  some  need,  or  pain,  but  will  not  cry  out. 

"  Look!  The  sea! '  Her  voice  was  self-forgetful 
for  the  first  time.     "  Quick,  while  the  gleam  lasts." 

She  pointed  out  southward,  but  he  did  not  look  the 
right  way.  "  Quick — it's  going,"  she  said.  Trying 
eagerly  to  put  him  right,  she  touched  his  arm  with  a 
hand. 

He  did  not  look,  even  then;  he  said  to  himself, 
"  The  kind  hand!  "  as  if  he  were  alone  and  caressing 
a  memory  that  enchanted.  Half  aroused  from  that,  he 
looked  round  and  down  and  met  eyes  that  were  up- 
turned and  shone,  bent  on  him,  lost  in  him ;  some  film 
was  on  them,  like  that  on  profoundly  stilled  pools,  yet 
they  quivered;  each  little  glistening  lake  vibrated  un- 
broken; they  swayed  as  a  moored  boat  sways  in  a 
stream  and  yet  is  moored  tautly.  Then  he  too  lost  all 
hold  but  that;  all  of  him  lived  along  the  line  of  his  gaze 
into  those  deeps.  Not  like  people  who  choose  what  to 
do,  or  who  think  "  This  may  be  right,"  or  "  Thus  far 
may  one  go,"  they  drew  to  each  other.  There  was  that 
thing  to  do  in  the  world,  nothing  else;  the  nobleness 
of  life  was  to  do  thus.  Yet  in  this  rush  of  their  first 
rapture  each  of  their  staunch  souls  was  ruled  by  the 
firm  powers  built  up  in  itself  through  all  its  continent 
youth,  she  to  a  gallant  trust  that  would  have  given  him 
even  her  lips,  and  he  to  a  passionate  guard  over  pas- 
sion; he  kissed  only  the  lids  of  her  eyes  as  they  closed 
on  the  love  that  they  had  let  in. 


176  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

How  long  had  they  clung  so?  Neither  could  tell. 
The  rolling  pine  music  had  rolled  on  through  lives  and 
round  worlds.  It  is  said  that  in  dreams  you  may  live 
years  in  the  instant  in  which  you  are  awaked.  Guy 
had  not  called,  the  moon  still  hung  where  she  did,  when 
each  drew  loose  a  little  from  the  other's  arms  and 
looked  at  the  face  which  had  once  been  unwon. 
Speech  had  to  come.  She  broke  their  descent  to  that 
earth.  "  The  sea !  "  she  said,  letting  them  down  on  the 
wings  of  a  playfulness;  "  you  never  answered  me." 

"  It  was  so  long  ago." 

'  I  must  show  you  again."  She  pointed  to  where, 
through  a  rent  torn  in  drift  mist,  a  sheen  was  seen 
dancing.  "  The  moon  on  the  Channel,"  she  said,  and 
then,  simply :  "  You  have  not  religion.  Yet  you  are 
near  it." 

"  I !  "  he  said,  wondering. 

"  You're  like  God,  the  way  a  child  is  like  a  father. 
You  can  do  things  in  His  way.  '  The  earth  is  His  and 
He  made  it,'  and  you  can  look  at  things  and  they're 
new ;  they're  made  at  that  moment,  and  the  morning 
and  the  evening  are  the  first  day."  She  spoke  almost 
wildly,  as  if  she  fluttered  wild  wings  against  the  walls 
of  inexpressiveness  that  cage  love. 

He  cherished  her,  soothing  those  wings.  "  Love,  it 
is  love ;  it  is  like  that ;  I  felt  it  to-night — you  remember, 
at  dinner,  the  way  the  wind  prowled  and  whined  round 
the  house.  I  caught  myself  laughing  with  glee  at  the 
very  thought  of  a  house,  a  room,  the  first  room  ever 
made — the  cute  little  cube  of  still  warmth  safe  and 
snug  in  the  middle  of  all  the  rush  of  coldness." 


THE  MORNINGS  WAR  177 

He  laughed,  and  her  mood  drew  in  to  his.  '  And 
I  sat  by  my  fire  last  night,"  she  responded,  "  and  sud- 
denly felt  a  sort  of  glow  of  the  triumph  the  man  must 
have  had  who  first  lit  one." 

"  The  jolly  miracle !  " 

"  Yes,  warming  his  toes." 

"  We're  being  born,  really,"  he  said.  "  The  first 
time  was  nothing — mere  passing  out  of  sleep  into  a 
doze." 

"  Yes,  all  the  dear  hum  and  thud  of  the  big  world 
thrown  away,  wasted  on  us." 

"  Yes,  or  only  just  booming  and  droning  on  into  a 
place  in  the  ends  of  old  dreams." 

The  two  drifted  down  the  same  eddying  current  of 
reverie ;  each  voice  trailed  the  very  rhythm  of  the 
other.  "  But  now — "  As  they  breathed  that  together, 
too,  their  eyes  joined  and  were  tangled  again.  She 
nestled  close,  barring  everything  out  of  her  heart  but 
the  moment's  indestructible  joy.  Let  everything  wait 
but  that;  she  had  to  be  harvesting.  Long  afterwards, 
over  her  head  as  it  lay  against  him,  his  voice  came  to 
her,  from  distances;  he  had  come  out  of  their  trance; 
he  must  have  been — yes,  she  was  sure  he  had  been 
turning  back  to  what  she  had  said :  "  religion  " — she 
heard  the  word  and  then  "  it's  dim  to  me,  all  that 
side,"  he  was  saying;  "not  ugly  darkness,  or  cruel; 
only  an  end  that  comes  to  light,  harmlessly,  the  way  it 
does  in  the  evening." 

The  words  were  being  pressed  out  of  him,  one  by 
one,  each  of  them  hard  sought,  for  the  help  it  might 
give  to  a  frankness  that  tried  not  to  hurt.     She  gave  a 


178  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

slight  moan,  not  at  his  words,  but  at  the  breaking  of 
her  ecstasy.     He  did  not  know  that. 

Aroused,  she  looked  up  with  eyes  wet  with  tender- 
ness ;  tenderness  shook  and  lowered  her  voice,  it  had 
possessed  her  so.  He  did  not  know.  How  could  he 
think  love  for  him  stronger  than  that  mystic  passion 
of  which  he  knew  nothing  except  that  half  the  world 
seemed  to  be  moved  by  it?  He  saw  only  the  shock  of 
his  creedlessness  bruising  her. 

She  saw  part  of  his  trouble  and  broke  out  in  con- 
solations, assurances,  hopes — he  might  find  faith  at 
Cusheen;  there  were  miracles  there — he  would  see; 
one  might  happen  to  him.  "  When  you  come  back  I 
shall  look  out  from  the  walls  for  you,  shading  my  eyes 
with  my  hands.  I  shall  know  by  the  light  round  your 
head."  Her  voice  had  that  wildness  again;  she  was 
rapt,  and  he  could  not  analyze.  Her  exaltation  was 
beautiful  to  him;  he  gloried  in  it;  and  yet  in  those 
transports  she  seemed  to  be  less  his;  lustrous,  as  visions 
are,  she  took  on,  too,  the  precariousness  of  a  vision 
as  if,  when  she  knew  him  for  what  he  was,  she  might 
fade  back,  with  her  kind  eyes  still  on  him,  into  estrang- 
ing brake  and  mist. 

Panic  seized  him;  he  wanted  her  back;  to  hold  her 
he  took  her  name,  now  his  to  caress,  and  played  with  it 
— what  name  was  like  it — June,  the  sweet  o'  the  year? 

Why,  his,  she  retorted;  Aubrey,  Aubrey,  it  had  the 
dawn  in  it — rose-colored  mists,  and  the  first  lark,  and 
diamonded  lawns. 

They  flitted  from  this  to  that,  not  talking  much 
about  love,  nor  like  lovers  in  books,  for  there  were  no 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  179 

readers  there  who  had  to  understand  them.  They 
rambled;  they  made  little  rushes  hither  and  thither, 
taking  possession  of  new  corners  of  Eden  with  little 
happy,  irrelevant,  incoherent  cries  of  discovery. 

"  Twelve  o'clock  and  a  starry  night,  but  a  wind 
rising."  Guy's  voice  came  up  to  them,  placid  and  cool 
as  spring  water.  He  had  strolled  out  from  his  bench ; 
his  cigarette's  end  could  be  seen,  a  pulse  of  light,  rising 
and  falling.    "  Is  London  in  sight,  good  people?  ' 

Oh — London?  They  looked  for  it.  Clouds  had 
mounted  the  north-east  sky  on  the  wind,  their  under 
side  sullenly  flushed  with  a  turbid  glow,  with  more  of 
darkness  in  it  than  light.  That  was  London,  flaring 
sootily  up  to  heaven.  More  clouds  rose  fast ;  the  wind 
roughened;  the  two  shivered  on  their  high  perch. 
They  groped  their  way  down  in  thickening  darkness; 
the  moon  was  put  out.  But  he  held  her  hand  now. 
Blow  wind,  come  blackness  and  winter,  he  held  her 
hand.  All  the  way  home  the  cries  of  the  owls,  the  bark 
of  a  fox,  the  far-away  whistle  of  a  night  mail  were 
calls  blown  on  bugles  and  clarions,  tossing  triumphantly 
up  and  down,  here  clear  on  the  crest  and  there  lost  in 
the  trough  of  the  long  waves  of  sound  now  heaving  on 
seas  of  murmuring  pines. 


CHAPTER  XV 

"  When  that  I  was  and  a  little  tiny  boy." 

Twelfth  Night,  Act  v.  Sc.  i. 

BROWNE  was  legging  it  hard  up  and  down  the 
deck  before  the  mail  boat  cleared  Holyhead  Har- 
bor and  struck  out  for — well,  for  what?  What  was  Ire- 
land more  than  a  word  to  him  ?  How  would  it  feel  to 
be  there  ?  Now  that  he  asked,  he  found  out  that  he  had 
not  even  a  formed  expectation.  What  a  young  ass  he 
must  have  been  not  to  question  his  Irish  parents  more ; 
they  must  have  loved  to  talk  about  everything  Irish, 
yet  scarcely  a  word  of  what  they  had  said  occurred  to 
him  now  as  he  went  back  the  way  they  had  come.  He 
rummaged  his  early  memories.  Vivid  and  small  they 
came  back  as  his  walk  quickened,  the  things  they  used 
to  recall  of  their  life  before  he  was  born — the  in- 
finitesimal flat  at  Florence,  the  vintage  at  Dijon,  at 
Bellinzona  a  grumpy  innkeeper,  the  doctor  at  Paris 
who  talked  bad  metaphysics ;  each  recollection  began 
to  shine  out,  as  his  mind  warmed,  like  one  small  picture 
on  a  bare  wall.  But  almost  everything  Irish  had 
faded.  Oral  tradition  went  back  no  further  than  those 
two  years  of  foreign  travel  before  he  was  born. 

They  must  have  come  to  England  to  nest  for  him. 
That  must  have  been  why  they  pitched  upon  Strand- 
on-the-Green,  with  mid-London  and  all  its  good 
schools  within  reach,  and  bought  the  ugly  small  house 

180 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  181 

looking  out  sunnily  on  to  the  Thames  which  no  one 
could  build  over.  Houses,  of  course,  had  been  cheap 
on  that  decayed  waterway  of  moldering  names — 
Chiswick,  Brentford,  Isleworth,  places  with  foreshores 
lined  with  leavings  of  atrophied  occupations,  with  fly- 
blown taverns,  ferries  that  only  just  paid;  barge- 
builders'  wharves  from  which  the  ring  of  hammers, 
turned  to  music  by  the  liquid  sounding-board,  came 
always  slower  than  last  year ;  eyots  with  banks  slipping 
down  and  baring  the  roots  of  great  trees,  nobody 
minding;  stretches  of  ageing  green  mud  between  the 
eyots  and  the  mainland,  with  water-logged  boats,  and 
bones  of  old  barges,  sticking  half  out  of  it.  Shutting 
his  eyes  he  stood  still  for  a  moment;  yes,  he  could 
place  each  faded  green  summer-house,  speckled  with 
burst  paint  blisters,  rotting  away  at  the  river  end  of 
the  long-grassed  garden  of  some  house  to  let,  the  pleas- 
ance,  no  doubt,  in  its  day,  of  some  Georgian  cit. 

He  walked  on,  still  more  gaily;  the  vivid  image  of 
melancholy  things  delights  happy  people,  as  firelight 
gains  a  last  charm  from  the  sound  of  dripping  eaves. 
And  merely  to  image  anything  was  delight ;  how  one's 
mind  leaped  about,  running  to  this  side  and  that,  as 
one  walked,  like  a  dog  out  with  a  man!  He  let  it;  he 
looked  on,  amused,  almost  patronizing;  it  brought 
half-forgotten  old  things  to  his  feet  for  sport,  as  re- 
trievers do — the  first  joy  of  the  river,  forbidden  at 
first,  and  how  he  had  won  the  freedom  of  it  by  force 
and  fraud,  the  furtive  wadings  at  first ;  the  perception, 
when  a  ninth  birthday  brought  manhood,  that  now 
he  must  swim;  the  swift,  guilty  stripping  among  the 


182  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

osiers  in  April;  the  drying  with  handkerchief  and  cap, 
and  then  the  return  home,  the  detected  damp  curls 
and  blue  nose  and  the  slapping  and  putting  to  bed; 
and,  next  day,  more  swimming  practice,  but  just  after 
breakfast,  so  that  all  the  rest  of  the  morning  might  go 
to  running  about  at  high  speed  and  rolling  down  a 
grass  slope,  to  induce  perspiration  and  dirt,  for  safety; 
and  how,  with  these  precautions,  the  cause  had 
marched  prospering  till  he  could  throw  off  at  dinner, 
as  if  by  the  way,  the  remark  that  now  he  could  swim 
right  across  at  high  tide.  No  storm  had  broken ;  his 
father  had  only  asked  him  "  What  stroke  ?  " — a  lum- 
inous question.  The  duck  never  lived  that  would  like 
to  hatch  hens. 

Recollection  gamboled  along,  taking  the  order  of 
time — how,  when  once  free  of  the  river,  he  caulked 
with  red  lead,  penuriously  saved  up  for,  a  marvelous 
old  canoe  that  a  former  tenant  had  left  in  a  shed. 
Why,  aboard  her  he  must  have  spent  almost  every 
holiday  hour  for  five  or  six  years,  ravished  with  the 
perpetual  entertainment  of  seeing  the  way  rivers  work 
and  the  way  they  look  while  working — all  the  various 
symbolic  boilings  and  twirls  of  surface  eddies  over 
different  submerged  objects;  the  wayward-seeming 
tricks  of  silting  and  scouring  that  drew  and  re-drew 
the  lines  of  channels;  the  consternation  of  water-rats 
when  a  great  tide  had  flooded  their  holes  and  they  had 
to  kill  time  by  swimming  and  running  about,  with 
their  nerves  all  on  edge,  till  the  deluge  had  abated ; 
the  way  the  stream  did  not  flow  straight  down  its  bed, 
as  you  might  have  thought,  but  stumbled  along  like  a 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  183 

drunken  man  in  a  walled  lane,  first  bumping  into  one 
bank  and  then  rebounding  obliquely  to  cannon  against 
the  other. 

How  splendid  his  father  and  mother  had  been,  not 
to  set  upon  him  and  take  away  from  him  firmly  the  joy 
of  prying  into  his  dear  river's  life,  and  prove  her  a 
pest  in  a  book,  with  a  mileage  and  tributaries.  At 
twelve  he  had  not  read  a  word  of  geography,  only  the 
JEncid  with  his  father,  and  plenty  of  Horace,  and 
Telemaque  with  his  mother,  and  Hugo's  Quatre-vingt- 
treize,  and  by  himself,  Don  Quixote,  in  Jarvis's  Eng- 
lish, and  Galland's  Arabian  Nights,  Smollett,  The 
Newcomes,  The  Vicar  of  Wakefield  and  Robinson 
Crusoe,  read  over  and  over  again  till  he  knew  the 
rhythms  of  every  part  that  he  liked,  as  one  knew  the 
lines  of  a  friend's  shoulders. 

This  profane  learning,  unsicklied  by  any  close  traffic 
with  grammar  or  history,  an  Aubrey  of  twelve  had 
carried  to  Blackfriars,  noblest  of  London's  great  day- 
schools.  London  had  opened  then;  London  was  his — 
streets  full  of  things  to  get  a  delighted  sense  of;  fallen 
horses  to  be  watched  with  agonies  of  compassion,  but 
utter  inability  to  miss  the  minutest  detail  of  their 
resurrection;  drunken  men,  captive  or  yet  free;  fire 
engines  to  pursue  to  any  extremity;  once  an  attempt 
at  suicide — a  swollen  bundle  of  clothes  floating  up  on 
the  tide,  and  a  boat  making  after  it  with  the  oars 
bending!  once  a  corpse  on  the  Blackfriars  foreshore, 
stiff  as  a  short  stick  and  bloated  beyond  thought,  with 
a  policeman  on  guard  in  his  pride  of  official  insensi- 
bility.   Oh,  ample  life ! 


184  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

Then  the  rise  of  the  theater:  first,  the  slow  matur- 
ing of  plans  for  a  Saturday  afternoon  when  his  parents 
would  not  be  at  home  to  miss  him,  then  the  hard  run 
at  noonday  from  school  to  the  two  hours'  fight  for  his 
place  at  the  old  Lyceum's  gallery  door;  you  fought 
for  your  place  in  those  days.  It  was  Irving  and  Terry 
in  Much  Ado  About  Nothing.  How  the  world  had 
swelled!  On  the  heels  of  the  vast  emotions,  with 
which  he  had  perspired  and  shivered  all  that  afternoon, 
had  come  the  first  misgiving  that  some  parts  of  life 
were  left  out  in  the  house  in  the  river  mists,  where  all 
the  talk  was  of  what  the  Vatican  was  to  do  next,  and 
the  terrible  prices  of  things,  and  where  no  word  seemed 
to  have  come  of  this  game  of  human  gaiety  sparking 
at  contact.  People,  he  now  saw,  had  friends  to  their 
houses ;  they  danced ;  some  one  made  music.  Much 
Ado  About  Nothing  proved  that.  He  must  learn  to 
dance  now,  at  his  ripe  age  of  fourteen,  as  Claudio  and 
Benedick  did,  and  other  men  of  the  world. 

After  some  weeks  of  coming  close  up  to  the  plunge 
and  then  shying  away,  the  explorer  of  life  had  pushed 
irrevocably  through  a  greasy  baize  door  labeled 
'  Bellaggio :  Dancing  for  Stage  and  Drawing-room," 
in  a  small  street  of  blighted  appearance,  off  Drury 
Lane,  and  near  Aubrey's  way  home,  and  had  asked  a 
lady  with  a  bluish  face  in  high  impasto  what  it  would 
cost  to  learn  to  dance  "  like  other  people,"  or,  as  he 
alternatively  defined  it,  "  enough  to  go  to  parties." 
A  pact  had  ensued  that  imposed  on  Aubrey  six  months' 
daily  walking  or  running  of  four  extra  miles,  to  save 
train  fares,  the  bluish  lady  consuming  the  fruits  of  this 


THE  MORNINGS  WAR  185 

retrenchment,  while  Aubrey  danced  gravely  for  twelve 
separate  hours  among  knowing  youths,  giggling  young 
women,  and  persons  who  were  there  not  wholly  as  de- 
votees of  the  art.  And  all  to  what  end?  'Little 
idiot  I  was!  "  he  could  say  to  himself  now,  with  kindly 
contempt.  For  he  had  clean  forgotten,  like  Robinson 
Crusoe,  to  think  how  he  should  launch  the  craft  when 
it  was  fashioned.  Dance  he  never  so  featly,  where 
should  he  do  it?  No  other  child  had  ever  entered 
the  house  at  Strand-on-the-Green,  nor  any  adult  friend 
either.  The  talent,  new  from  the  mint,  must  lodge 
in  him  useless — so  he  had  owned  to  himself  with  apol- 
ogetic candor  a  day  or  two  after  the  twelfth  lesson 
was  over. 

A  sager  inspiration  had  followed.  To  dance,  two 
were  needed;  music,  heavenly  music,  was  cultivable 
by  one.  But  what  instrument  ?  Strings,  for  choice : 
it  was  strings  in  that  scene  in  Much  Ado  About  Noth- 
ing. And,  conning  advertisements  hard,  he  had  per- 
ceived that  the  only  serious  stringed  instrument  really 
in  question,  for  men  of  his  means,  was  the  banjo.  The 
means — amassed  during  another  six  months — were 
nine  shillings;  frugality  at  the  mid-day  meal-time 
could  no  more.  With  these  nine  a  remote  Whitechapel 
barber  had  had  to  be  faced;  he  had  announced  an  old 
banjo  at  ten,  but  it  fell  to  the  nine  after  a  desperate 
set-to,  in  which  Aubrey,  half -dead  with  shyness,  had 
doggedly  hung  on,  bringing  into  the  field  every  ruse  he 
had  seen  his  mother  practise  of  late  at  the  side  door  in 
combat  with  hawkers. 

When  swords  were  dropped  and  the  barber,  like  the 


18G  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

exalted  spirit  he  was,  had  thrown  in  a  sixpenny  manual 
of  the  instrument,  Aubrey  had  limped  home  with  the 
spoils,  covenanted  and  uncovenanted,  making  faces 
with  exultation  in  shadows  where  no  one  could  see. 
Only  late  on  that  day  of  triumph,  when  he  would  fain 
have  struck  his  lyre,  had  he  run  right  up  against  a 
second  dead  wall — he  could  not  tell  which  note  was 
which;  he  had  no  "ear";  he  never  could  even  tune 
the  thing.  For  hours  he  strummed  at  the  strings, 
hoping  dimly  that  recognizable  melody  might  emerge, 
and  searching  the  book  for  some  clue  to  the  exit  from 
a  perplexity  which  must  surely  have  vexed  the  noviti- 
ate of  many  masters.  No  use.  At  bed-time  he  had 
hidden  his  banjo  away,  for  good,  in  a  dark  corner, 
well  at  the  back  of  the  loft,  without  internal  whining; 
at  least  he  had  not  that  shame  to  soil  or  sour  the  fun  of 
remembering  all  that  foolishness  now.  Walking  alone 
he  had  picked  himself  up  whenever  he  fell  and  had 
rubbed  his  shins  and  gone  on. 

His  shattered  finances  had  sent  him  next  to  cheaper 
fields  than  those  arts.  Once  he  had  walked  to  Epsom, 
a  bare  fourteen  miles,  stared  all  day,  ravished  above 
earth,  at  races,  the  ring,  the  booths,  the  welshers, 
three-card-men  and  tipsters,  and  stumped  home  at 
night  with  his  legs  re-entering  into  his  body,  but  his 
mind  brimming  jocundly  with  the  day's  takings.  For 
milder  joys  there  was  the  National  Gallery;  standing 
for  some  time  and  thinking  of  nothing  in  presence  of 
the  big  Turner  beside  the  big  Claude  would  induce  a 
turbid,  inarticulate  solemnity  and  melancholy  that  felt 
luxurious;  there  were  the  docks,  where  the  sight  of 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  187 

bales  labeled  Bagdad  and  Balsora  produced  agreeable 
sensations;  and  there  were  the  parts  of  Mayfair  that 
came  into  The  Neivcomes,  preferably  Park  Lane, 
where  he  would  stand  on  the  opposite  curb,  consider 
the  make  of  the  houses,  relish  the  forms  of  blinds  or 
the  dusky  gleam  of  a  picture-frame  caught  by  the  sun, 
and  meditate  possession  later.  Thence  he  would  re- 
turn home  slowly,  in  measureless  tranquil  beatitude, 
his  senses,  well  fed  as  they  were,  still  able  to  take  light 
refreshment  en  route  from  the  sweet  sea-like  roar  of 
the  Strand.  That  music  would  turn  off  and  on  when 
two  fingers  placed  on  the  ears  were  pressed  down  or 
raised  up,  as  though  on  the  holes  of  a  flute,  or,  with 
both  ears  open,  he  hearkened  musingly  to  the  gentler 
thud  of  the  hoofs  as  the  'buses  slowed  down  to  form 
queue  through  the  gut,  now  gone,  west  of  the  island 
church  of  St.  Clement's.  He  trailed  dusty  feet  home- 
wards, with  no  dust  on  his  spirits ;  it  would  have  been 
laid  by  the  blithe  way  the  first  lamps  decked  the  first 
twilight,  or  spirited  away  in  some  vesper  rhythm  of 
thought  set  going  by  the  whole  restward  trail  of  the 
black-coated  hosts  homing  for  the  night,  looking  so 
extraordinarily  different  from  their  morning  faces 
and  walks. 

He  had  had  a  regard  for  these  beings.  Safely  as- 
sured that  they  would  not  speak  to  him,  he  would  pur- 
sue their  possible  doings  out  of  his  sight,  image  with 
regret  the  precipitate  breakfast  of  one  who  had  run 
for  the  train,  or  lay  out,  for  those  who  seemed  rich, 
delectable  draft  lives  of  going  to  races  all  day  and 
plays  every  night.    He  had  tracked  some  of  them  into 


188  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

their  various  churches.  He  had  never  been  brought 
to  church,  but  it  seemed  to  be  one  of  the  things  that 
people  ran  after,  like  going  to  races,  and  so  he  must 
see  to  it.  He  had  not  known  at  first  whether  you  paid 
at  the  door,  as  in  theaters,  or  when  you  left  at  the  end, 
as  on  Hammersmith  Bridge,  or  when.  So  it  was  in 
some  fear  of  ejection,  he  being  a  very  apostle  for  des- 
titution just  then,  that  he  penetrated  to  one  or  two 
shrines,  apiece,  of  Anglicanism,  Dissent,  the  Roman 
Catholics,  the  Jews,  and  the  conscious,  pleased  Athe- 
ists. He  preferred  the  Roman  and  Anglican  modes, 
putting  the  Anglican  first,  for  the  lovely  sound  of  its 
prayers.  "  Almighty  God,  the  Father  of  all  mercies, 
we,  Thine  unworthy  servants,  do  give  Thee  most  hum- 
ble and  hearty  thanks — "  To  hear  this  was  like  being 
stroked  on  the  hair  when  tired;  it  was  not  praying, 
but  having  prayers  answered.  Still,  the  Roman  use 
had  its  virtues;  for  one,  the  remote,  sinking  hum  of 
some  parts  of  the  Mass,  like  the  ambrosial  softening 
of  a  bumble  bee's  buzz  as  it  passes  out  through  the 
window  into  hot  sunshine;  that  golden  droning  made 
one's  own  thoughts  run  sweetly,  whatever  they  were; 
it  elevated  inattention  to  itself  into  absorption  in  other 
ideas,  unlike  the  Nonconformist  worship,  which  jolted 
and  exacted  and  kept  you  in  torment  lest  the  man 
praying  should  not  know  what  to  say  next,  and  be 
vexed. 

Queer  sort  of  being,  Aubrey  began  to  think,  to  offer 
itself  to  June,  for  her  to  be  with,  all  her  life.  A  close 
little  animal,  too.  Not  a  word  about  those  vast  adven- 
tures had  he  ever  said  to  his  father  or  mother.     He 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  189 

tried  to  remember  now ;  no,  not  one :  it  had  not  even 
occurred  to  him.  During  meals  the  parents  had  nearly 
always  talked  about  household  bills  and  Biblical  critics. 
He  had  listened  and,  somehow,  never  asked  questions. 
Neither  had  they.  Unhelped  and  unhampered,  his 
mind  had  poked  and  peered  about,  this  way  and  that, 
touching  things,  stroking  them,  left  alone  with  his 
own  sense  of  the  feel  of  them.  It  had  seemed  natural 
so.  But  why?  It  was  odd,  really;  so  he  felt  now.  It 
was  not  as  if  he  had  not  cared  for  his  parents,  or  they 
for  him.  Affection  between  the  three  had  been  not, 
perhaps,  a  caress,  but  a  clutch,  silent  and  almost  grim ; 
the  inner  flame  had  burnt  up  all  outward  profession, 
it  was  so  fierce.  He  thought  how  in  his  bed  one  night 
at  Strand-on-the-Green  he  had  imagined  one  of  them 
dead,  and  remembered  the  pains  he  had  taken  before 
breakfast  next  day  to  clear  from  his  face  the  stains  of 
the  night's  shamefaced  agonies.  He  had  been  ill  the 
month  before  and  his  father  had  sat  by  him,  so  unable, 
for  grief  and  fear,  to  play  the  cheerful,  sick-visiting 
elder  that  Aubrey,  peering  at  the  stern  face  from  out 
his  blankets,  had  wondered  whether  his  father  was 
thinking  of  killing  him — quite  justly,  the  way  the  cat 
killed  its  young  ones  when  they  were  sick  and  both- 
ered her.     "  And  I  never  saw  !     Little  brute !  ' 

He  was  sorry  and  yet  he  could  not  wholly  regret 
anything.  To  the  man  newly  happy  in  love  all  his  old 
life  is  a  chain  of  miracles  miraculously  linked.  Had 
but  one  link  been  not  what  it  was,  he  might  not  have 
ever  met  her.  So  all  the  links  are  treasures;  he  doats 
on  them  all;  queer  things  that  some  of  them  looked, 


100  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

perhaps,  at  the  time,  they  touch  him  now  with  their 
dim  and  faithful  striving,  as  of  kind  blind  hands, 
towards  the  divine  end  that  has  come.  Aubrey  was 
not  rent  now  when  he  saw,  for  the  first  time  clearly, 
how  his  own  crescent  needs  had  made  passionate 
misers  of  two  generous  people.  The  deck  he  walked 
on  was  empty,  the  ship  light ;  elate  on  the  sea  she 
skimmed  like  a  plate  thrown  flat  over  the  surface  of 
water,  with  preternatural-seeming  buoyancy,  helping 
thought  to  be  buoyant.  The  night  was  beautiful  with 
stars,  and  the  sea  only  moved  as  the  flesh  does  in  sleep, 
with  the  lovely  heave  of  the  measure  of  life.  He  was 
not  rent,  but  touched,  as  if  by  some  old  sad  thing 
turned  to  beauty  in  a  book.  In  that  way  he  saw  how 
his  mother,  at  some  point  in  talk  over  swollen  school 
bills,  would  leap  up  to  lower  the  gas  by  which  she 
read  Renan  to  his  father,  or  would  flinch  away  at  the 
last  moment,  jibe  the  conductor  never  so  rudely,  from 
the  halfpenny  bus  which  she  used  to  take  sometimes 
when  much  tired  and  parcel-laden  with  the  day's  for- 
aging. He  had  ruled  all  that  shopping ;  his  growth 
had  taught  her  to  feel,  like  yachtsmen,  for  each  breath 
of  favoring  air  that  rippled  the  least  patch  of  the  mar- 
ket, swiftly  diverting  her  custom  from  her  old  grocer, 
grown  too  grand,  to  the  little  man  just  setting  up  and 
straining  his  prices  to  catch  business.  Aubrey  and  no 
other,  by  kicking  his  toes  through  his  boots,  had  shown 
her  how  little  the  world's  rough  classification  of  but- 
termen,  one  as  dear  and  another  as  cheap,  reflected 
the  undulant  diversity  of  truth;  one,  when  you  came 
to  know,  had  fair  eggs  at  the  price,  another  charged 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  191 

frightfully  much  for  all  but  bacon,  for  butter  you 
threw  your  money  away  if  you  did  not  go  to  a  third. 
It  was  when  Aubrey's  plunging  elbows  and  knees  had 
outgrown  her  tailoring  that  she  foreswore  certain 
orders  of  shops  altogether  and  bought  from  hawkers, 
whose  fish  and  greens  she  would  beat  down  at  her 
door,  steeling  herself  to  assume  a  forced  tactical  calm 
while  the  indignant  adversary  withdrew,  at  the  crisis 
of  a  bargain,  almost  to  the  garden  gate,  her  prescient 
heart  saying  he  would  come  back,  broken,  to  take  the 
penny  off  the  plaice.  What  deceits  she  had  learnt 
from  him.  Her  privy  share  in  the  household  washing 
had  grown  like  a  British  Empire.  Soon  after  the  talk 
of  Aubrey's  going  to  Oxford  began  she  had  annexed 
to  her  sphere  his  father's  white  shirts  and  collars,  the 
laundry  profession's  last  inch  of  ground  in  the  house. 
Not  to  wound  Bridget  the  general  servant's  respect 
for  her  place,  the  prey  would  be  hidden  till  Bridget's 
night  out;  the  moment  the  garden  gate  clattered  be- 
hind her  a  guilty  pair  flew  to  the  scullery,  one  to 
wash,  wring,  dry  and  iron  in  tremulous  haste;  the 
other — half  seen  by  Aubrey  through  reek  as  he  de- 
scended with  some  stumper  in  /Eschylus  for  solution 
— abetting  the  principal  in  the  fraud  by  reading  aloud 
the  last  big  German  on  Genesis. 

Possibly  some  potential,  semi-presentient  father  in 
Aubrey  helped  to  soften  remorse  in  Aubrey  the  son. 
We  are  all  young  gods  in  our  turn  and  accept  sacrifice 
coolly  from  women  and  men.  Perhaps  it  works  round 
to  something  roughly  just  in  the  end,  and  debts  can  be 
paid,  if  not  to  those  whom  they  were  owed  to.     When 


192  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

we,  too,  turn  into  worshipers,  after  our  godhead  has 
lapsed,  then  we  too  would  not  have  the  smell  of  our 
incense  spoiled  for  the  real  gods,  the  new,  young  gods, 
by  their  knowing  how  incense  has  to  be  scraped  for, 
sometimes.  Aubrey  had  ceased  walking;  he  stood  in 
the  bows,  leaning  over,  watching  the  ship's  stem  press 
eagerly  through  the  luminous  water.  The  sound  held 
him;  it  was  like  that  of  some  audible  motion  too  swift 
to  go  on,  like  the  swish  of  a  paper-knife  quickly  cut- 
ting a  page.  Not  agonizingly,  nor  yet  sentimentally, 
he  wished  that  those  two  could  be  alive;  he  would  have 
been  frank  with  them  now ;  he  would  have  given  away 
every  secret  of  that  absurd,  burrowing,  surmising  imp 
that  he  had  been;  he  would  have  liked  them  to  know 
he  was  theirs  more,  not  less,  for  this  new  love ;  and  they 
would  surely  have  liked  the  thought  of  him  here,  with 
the  wind  of  the  boat's  speed  cool  on  his  face,  as  it 
carried  him  through  the  mild  night,  back  to  their  Ire- 
land. 

Somewhere  in  the  ship's  vitals  a  bell  struck ;  the 
engines  stopped.  Under  the  bows  the  cleaving  sound's 
insistency  failed  by  degrees;  the  tall  new  page  was 
almost  cut  now.  He  watched  till  the  prow  scarcely 
rippled  the  water.  Then  he  looked  up,  and  lo,  it  was 
Ireland — lights  on  a  pier;  a  lighted  train  waiting;  be- 
hind that,  a  sleeping  town  lightless  and  enigmatic  in 
morning  twilight;  behind  that,  again,  all  the  reserve 
of  dark  hills. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

"I  have  been  here  before, 

But  when  or  how  I  cannot  tell : 
I  know  the  grass  beyond  the  door, 
The  sweet,  keen  smell. 
The  sighing  sound,  the  lights  around  the  shore." 

D.  G.  Rossetti. 

IN  Aubrey's  first  letter  June  read : — "  I  had  a  new 
joy  when  I  landed.  Every  one  talked  in  the  way  I 
should  have  done  if  I  had  been  in  the  place  of  him. 
Porters  and  beggars  and  newspaper  boys — they  were 
all  I,  put  to  those  jobs.  It's  a  strange  place — I  know 
it  better  than  any  I  ever  was  in.  It  isn't  the  brogue; 
it's  the  way  their  minds  catch  a  thing  when  it's  thrown 
them — the  gesture,  its  naturalness.  So  it's  like  coming 
home  ;  at  home  no  one  is  odd. 

"  This  hotel  is  the  one  that  priests  stay  at;  scarcely 
a  tweed  coat  at  breakfast.  The  priests  seem  most 
natural,  to  me,  of  all.  Perhaps  it's  because  they're 
what  English  parsons  are  trying  to  be,  only  the  par- 
sons can't  quite  get  it  out,  and  so  the  priests  are  more 
like  them  than  they  are  themselves,  as  good  portraits 
are.  The  way  the  priests  argue,  the  way  they  quote 
Horace,  the  way  they  talk  about  their  bishops,  the 
way  they're  nice  to  the  heathen,  and  yet  he's  a  heathen 
— it's  all  part  of  something  I  seem  to  know  as  I  never 
knew  England  nor  anything  there,  except  you. 

193 


104  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

"  All  clay  I  have  been  clinging  to  side-cars,  going 
about  to  see  people,  show  my  first  credentials,  and  get 
others,  and  all  that.     I  called  on  the  great  prelate — I 
had  a  letter  to  him — and  his  welcome  matched  every- 
thing else ;  a  courtly  prince  of  your  Church,  and  yet  I 
was  mystically  prepared  for  the  thing  he'd  say  next. 
'  You're  an  Irishman  too  ?  '  he  asked,  towards  the  end. 
I  had  felt  it  coming.     '  The  County  Monaghan,  is  it?  ' 
As  if  I  could  tell!     My  father  never  seemed  to  have 
time  to  talk  of  things  here.    But  I  recollected  just  then, 
by  good  luck,  how  my  mother  had  let  it  out  once  that 
a  Cardinal  Doran  had  been  some  remote  cousin.     I 
couldn't  forbear;  I  played  my  cardinal,  proudly.     I 
think  it  did  good.     The  Archbishop  looked  quite  in- 
trigued, and  his  chaplain,  who'd  hovered  about  all  this 
time,  pulled  up  dead  for  a  second  as  soon  as  I  put  my 
trump  down.     No  doubt  it  was  just  polite  show  of 
interest — all    the    questions    they    asked    after    that. 
They  all  have  manners,  your  clergy.    I  told  all  I  could, 
by  way  of  acknowledging  it. 

"  The  Chaplain  has  come  round  this  evening. 
They're  wonderful.  He  had  a  plan,  all  made  up,  to 
save  me  trouble  by  passing  me  on  from  one  parish 
priest  to  another,  all  through  the  whole  West.  I'm 
starting  to-morrow.  I  shall  be  like  a  bucket  used  at 
Maynooth  to  put  out  a  fire.  There — see  how  I  can 
babble  about  the  things  that  don't  matter,  and  nothing 
about  the  only  great  thing.     I've  tried,  and  given  up. 

"  '  Dumbed  by  aiming  utterance  great, 
Up  to  the  miracle  of  my  fate.' 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  195 

"  I  have  a  great  fear,  too,  of  saying  some  things 
the  wrong  way — lest  the  pain  come  up  in  your  face, 
and  I  not  there  to  tell  you  the  way  I'd  meant  it." 

The  first  time  that  June  read  the  letter  she  felt  she 
must  have  missed  the  chief  part  of  it  out.  After  the 
fifth  or  sixth  reading  she  knew  that  what  she  had 
missed  was  not  there ;  it  was  only  a  letter,  and  not  he. 
She  had  furtively  hoped  that,  each  time  he  wrote,  it 
would  be,  while  she  read,  as  if  he  were  back;  she 
would  be  as  she  was  when  beside  him  she  looked 
along  the  line  of  his  sight  and  bent  up,  for  her  own  use 
and  delight,  his  communicable  strength.  No  hope  of 
that,  she  saw,  now;  he  was  really  gone;  parted  was 
parted;  letters  would  only  animate  thoughts  of  that 
miracle ;  they  would  not  do  it. 

She  scanned  the  letter  first  in  her  room,  in  a  hurry, 
half  afraid  of  it,  glancing  over  the  pages  of  unread 
words  as  if  they  were  the  upturned  faces  of  a  crowd 
that  might  do  to  her  she  knew  not  what.  Then  it  was 
all  read  through  in  the  garden  among  the  crumbling 
hollyhocks,  and  again  on  the  caked  field-path  through 
stubble  as  June  walked  to  the  village,  and  then,  many 
times,  in  the  afternoon,  in  the  secure  solitude  of  the 
Hurtwood  pines,  her  horse  standing  wondering  what 
the  delay  was  and  bending  round  looks  of  mild  chiding 
at  her  long  motionlessness.  The  gentleness  of  his  re- 
monstrances touched  her  at  last;  she  put  the  letter 
away,  patted  his  neck  and  apologized;  now  they  would 
have  a  good  gallop.  She  needed  it ;  she  had  grownchilly 
before  she  looked  up.    She  looked  round;  everywhere 


196  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

brownness  and  fall,  an  ebb  and  a  closing  in.  She  had 
exulted  in  it  only  yesterday;  youth  always  does,  when 
its  own  flame  is  undamped ;  morning  and  spring  in  the 
blood  delight  in  their  own  effortless  victory  over  what- 
ever it  is  that  casts  down  the  ageing  year.  But,  just 
now,  a  frightening  thought  blew  up  like  a  cloud,  she 
could  not  tell  whence,  and  traversed  her  sky — that  her 
spirit  had  no  valiant  heat  of  its  own  at  all,  no  high, 
unborrowed  will  to  live  greatly;  that  she  was  like 
water;  it  could  be  heated,  but  not  heat  itself;  as  soon 
as  you  took  it  away  from  the  fire,  ardor  began  to  die 
out  of  it;  so  might  hers,  too,  cool  away  to  nothing  in 
that  cold,  extinguished  moon-world  of  her  father's  and 
Guy's.  She  wrote  that  night  to  Aubrey,  among  other 
things : 

"  Do  go  on  loving  me.  You  are  cheated,  I  know ; 
if  you  could  see  me,  even  for  one  glimpse,  just  as  I 
am,  you'd  leave  me.  You  couldn't  not  do  it.  You'd 
have  to  say,  '  Fool  that  I've  been! '  I  hate  to  cheat 
you,  and  yet  I'm  in  fear,  much  more  dreadful,  lest 
you  get  back  your  sight  and  just  go. 

"How  tiny  that  Irish  world  is!  My  mother  was 
some  most  remote  kinswoman  of  Cardinal  Doran's  too. 
I'll  work  it  out  some  day ;  I'll  write  to  my  Aunt  Kate — 
she  is  a  nun  at  Rathfarnham.  She  knows  all  family 
history;  she'll  help. 

"  The  days  are  short  now ;  the  heather  under  the 
mill  was  shiny  with  dew  this  afternoon  although  it 
was  sunny.    Do  love  me  very  much — find  some  way  of 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  197 

loving  me  so  that  you  would  go  on  though  you  found 
me  out  utterly." 

Aubrey  wrote  next  from  Banturk,  from  a  priest's 
house : — 

"  I'm  right  on  the  edge  of  the  world  of  trains,  shops 
and  inns.  From  here  you  look  out  westward,  over  the 
verge,  and  across  wet  hills,  to  where  Cusheen  must 
be.  Down  with  these  endless  wet  hills;  they're  too 
like  the  sea,  with  the  sun  setting  beyond  it,  when 
you're  alone.  I  shiver  a  little;  I  want  you  here  to 
draw  close  to. 

"  It  isn't  a  merry  journey  from  Dublin.  Things 
appeared  which  I  hadn't  thought  of ;  and  yet,  when  I 
saw  them,  I  knew  them  and  felt  half  ashamed  of  hav- 
ing been  caught  forgetting.  I  came  by  a  night  train 
to  Croom  and  woke  in  the  bad  light  before  dawn,  the 
chilled  gray,  like  mist  and  ashes  and  fainting  faces 
and  lead.  There  were  crows  standing  still  on  the  pal- 
ings of  stations  we  passed ;  they  watched  the  train  in 
and  out;  nobody  noticed  them.  Nobody  got  in  or  out, 
except  two  policemen  with  guns.  As  the  light  grew 
I  saw  there  were  skeletons  of  villages  lying  about  in 
the  fields,  bones  of  old  houses  and  churches,  half  out 
of  sight  under  nettles ;  ivy  was  sprawling  on  them. 

"  I  changed  to  a  slower  train  at  Croom  and  a  slower 
still  at  Kanteer.  We  reached  Banturk  before  eight, 
but  the  priest  was  waiting.  The  way  they  all  befriend 
me  makes  me  ashamed ;  when  the  next  thing  to  do  is 
not  certain,  a  good  black-coated  genie  springs  up  and 


108  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

directs.  We  walked  up  a  slope  to  his  house.  At  the  top 
I  looked  round  and  the  train  was  some  way  off  already, 
scuttling  back  to  the  East  with  quick,  aghast  little 
puffs,  like  a  beast  that  had  taken  fright  at  the  place. 

"  The  priest,  Father  O'Keel,  has  his  reserve ;  per- 
haps I  seem  English.  Banturk  was  '  disturbed,'  he 
says,  a  few  years  ago.  He  took  me  a  walk  after  break- 
fast; he'd  point  to  a  cabin;  'the  man  of  the  house,' 
he'd  say,  '  there,  was  convicted  thrice  \ ;  or  another  had 
served  ten  months;  or  '  When  I  was  in  Croom  jail  my- 
self I'd  see  a  good  third  of  my  people  below  in  the 
yard,  at  their  exercise.'  He  described  it  aggressively, 
almost,  and  unconfidentially.  Poor  man,  he  must  have 
thought  me  an  Austrian.  I  told  him  what  a  full- 
blooded  Venetian  I  am.  He  did  not  quite  warm,  even 
then — he  only  became  more  urbanely  guarded. 

"  The  potatoes  are  bad  even  here — '  not  fit  to  offer 
a  goose,  let  alone  a  clean  pig,'  a  man  said.  The  soil  is 
famished;  the  bald  slopes  rise  and  fall,  mile  beyond 
mile,  treeless,  featureless ;  rain  soaking  into  them  week 
after  week;  the  wind  blows  it  into  the  cabins.  '  Will 
that  not  content  you?'  Father  O'Keel  asked  me. 
'  Two  hundred  souls  in  it,  and  fifty  policemen;  pig's 
food,  and  that  only,  to  eat  for  the  winter;  and  next 
week,  or  the  week  after  that,  the  sheriff's  men  coming 
to  drive  off  any  stock  that's  not  starved  on -them  al- 
ready. Will  nothing  do  for  you  at  all  but  Cusheen 
itself? '  He  had  a  dour  ruth  in  his  voice,  as  if  it  were 
I  that  was  going  to  be  hurt.  They're  all  kind  here, 
but  it's  shiversome.  Keep  close,  comrade;  let's  keep 
all  the  lights  up  in  our  hearts  and  the  fire  roaring." 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  199 

June  read  it  with  a  new  glow.  He  had  been  shaken 
by  something;  that  grieved  her.  The  way  he  wrote 
made  her  see  how  his  face  would  look  if  it  were 
haggard;  it  hurt  her  to  think  of  him  so.  But  he  had 
called  out  to  her — it  was  the  first  time — as  if  she  could 
help  in  some  need,  and  pain  was  lost  in  that  joy,  as  a 
mother's  is  when  she  first  wakes  in  the  night  to  a  bit- 
ter little  cry  for  her  ministration  to  some  small  neces- 
sity. Then  she  scolded  herself,  as  her  way  was.  Had 
she  not  wanted  him  strong?  Had  she  not  felt  only 
two  days  before  that  all  her  own  strength  was  the 
overflow  of  a  few  drops  from  the  full  vessel  of  his? 
That  was  true,  but  so  was  the  other;  she  craved  his 
strength,  but  also  his  weakness.  Let  the  discord  re- 
solve itself  how  it  could,  she  would  not  shrink  from  it ; 
she  would  exult  in  the  two  clashing  notes. 

She  walked  about  the  lanes  for  hours  that  day,  try- 
ing to  stow  away  into  a  tranquil  place  in  her  treasury 
of  gladnesses  the  uncontrollable  ecstasy  of  that  dis- 
covery. It  took  long.  That  day  was  her  richest,  she 
half  knew  that  no  more  treasure  could  come;  she  had 
climbed  to  the  top-gallant  of  joy.  As  she  came  home 
the  moment's  perfectness  almost  weighed  on  her;  the 
world  seemed  ripe ;  it  hung  finished,  lustrous,  its  great 
time  reached.  A  presentient  light  came ;  she  saw  that, 
ten  years  after,  if  she  should  walk  in  these  lanes,  she 
might  feel  "  how  that  oak  has  failed  now,"  or  think, 
perhaps,  that  some  young  ash  was  a  scraggy,  poor 
thing  as  yet,  or  wonder  for  what  strolling  lovers  some 
overblown  flower  had  decked  a  great  day.  But  not 
now.     Nothing  was  past  its  true  prime  now,  or  before 


200  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

it;  everything  had  lived  only  to  be  as  it  was  then; 
even  the  things  gone  to  seed  by  the  way  could  hardly 
have  their  hearts  in  the  past,  or  the  very  young  things 
be  pushing  towards  to-morrow.  People,  too,  of  many 
ages  and  kinds,  all  stood  at  the  delicious  crisis  of  their 
lives;  for  this  they  had  lived,  old  women  with  seamed 
and  drawn  faces  to  be  the  perfected  paintings  of  pa- 
tience and  waiting  that  they  were  now,  and  boys  to  be 
running  wild  with  their  heels  flinging  up,  for  figures 
of  youth.  The  world  stood  up  perfect,  with  no  old 
transports  of  joy  to  ache  back  at,  nor  far-off  ends  for 
desire  to  live  in;  she  stood  as  though  at  the  middle  of 
a  wheel,  with  all  things  and  times  and  people  run- 
ning in  on  it  like  spokes,  bent  on  it  and  centering 
at  it. 

But  the  note  of  ecstasy,  like  that  of  agony,  will  not 
be  held.  You  may  climb  from  peak  to  peak  of  joy, 
but  the  way  between  them  must  dip.  June  was  down 
from  the  heights  and  out  of  the  glow  when  the  next 
letter  came — from  Cusheen  at  last. 

"  I  have  crossed  the  moor  to  Cusheen.  Such  a 
moor !  I  don't  know  how  wide — leagues  and  leagues ; 
the  only  moor  in  the  world ;  '  a  heath,'  '  a  blasted 
heath  ' — Shakespeare  dreamt  it,  the  time  his  mind 
was  just  on  the  brink.  We  drove  for  five  hours  and 
saw  no  one;  not  a  goat,  even.  There  was  a  wind;  the 
grass  by  the  road  whistled  loud  enough  for  a  while, 
then  it  dropped  to  a  whine,  and  then  thinned  right 
away  into  odd  wisps  of  whimpering.  Then  it  stopped 
quite — not  the  wind ;  it  must  have  been  the  grass  that 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  201 

stopped;  it  starved  by  the  road  till  the  wind  had  none 
left  to  play  on.    Then  we  came  to  Cusheen. 

"  Cusheen  is  not  made  of  earth,  like  other  places 
that  people  live  in.  It's  stone — one  rumpled  sheet  of 
it;  some  drift  dirt  in  the  wrinkles,  of  course,  but  the 
rest  just  naked;  it  streamed  and  shone  with  rain,  like 
wet  slates  in  moonlight.  That's  all  I've  seen  yet.  The 
few  hours  I've  been  here  the  Father  has  not  let  me  out 
of  his  sight.  He  seems  to  fear  I  might  be  knocked 
down  by  the  sight  of  his  parish  unless  he  were  there  to 
interpret  God's  ways.  He's  always  with  me — no,  al- 
ways a  little  way  off;  they  all  are;  I'm  coming  to  feel 
like  a  child  that  has  found  its  way  into  a  wood  full  of 
gnomes  of  some  kind  that  won't  come  out  and  parley, 
but  peep  and  draw  back  and  watch  from  behind  trunks 
of  trees  and  whisper  together  and  pass  him  on  deeper 
into  the  wood;  it  always  opens  a  little  in  front  and 
closes  in  behind  me.  I  avow  it,  I'm  solitary,  with  this 
cordon  all  round,  wherever  I  move,  and  all  with  the 
one  manner — civil  and  helpful  and  that,  but  oh,  their 
paralyzing  tact!  It's  as  if  I  were  going  to  be  hanged 
and  they  might  have  to  hold  me  down  yet.  I'm  not 
of  the  fold,  of  course;  that  must  be  it. 

"  You  see,  I  tell  all,  without  shame;  if  I  shiver  you 
hear  the  teeth  chatter.  Still,  it  is  all,  I  think.  I'll  say, 
after  to-morrow.     On  into  the  wood  to-morrow." 

No  letter  came  next  day,  or  the  next.  Through 
those  two  days  June  thought  she  was  standing  it  well; 
too  well? — she  asked  herself  once  or  twice,  chidingly; 
had  she  grown  hard?    At  the  end  of  the  second  day 


202  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

panic  broke  with  a  rush  through  the  wall  on  which  she 
had  mounted  guard  with  the  staunchness  that  she  had 
taken  for  want  of  heart.  The  thing  came  in  the  dark; 
she  had  put  out  her  light,  she  was  going  resolutely  to 
sleep,  when  suddenly  the  darkness  changed ;  it  ceased 
to  be  innocent ;  first  an  infinitesimal  buzz  was  abroad, 
the  beat  of  a  droning  hot  pulse;  and  then  the  be- 
leaguering terror  ran  in  on  her — it  came  from  all 
round,  it  was  like  a  multitude,  it  was  everywhere,  as 
if  the  whole  air  were  cellular  and  every  cell  of  it  a  fear 
for  Aubrey,  all  of  them  pressing  in  at  the  beset  brain 
to  possess  it. 

She  must  have  slept  at  moments  after  that,  for  some 
of  the  night's  train  of  torments  were  dream,  mostly 
the  fleet  portrait-dreams  that  stab  lovers  and  friends; 
not  illusions  of  action,  with  time  passing,  but  fugitive 
visions  of  something  itself  immobile  or  arrested,  as  if 
she  saw,  through  shifting  breaks  in  a  mist,  one  or 
another  poignant  set  look  on  the  most  dear  face.  At 
times  she  saw  him  appealingly  small,  a  child  rendingly 
alone  with  some  trouble  or  frustrate  plan.  When  she 
awoke  from  that,  fear  itself  had  to  wait  while  love 
grew  into  twice  itself  by  musing  on  all  that  she  had 
lost  of  him,  the  years  before  they  met,  when  he  must 
have  had  a  child's  sky-darkening  griefs  and  a  boy's 
dumbly-swallowed  humiliations,  and  she  not  there. 
Other  dreams,  too;  one,  monochromatic  with  dust,  of 
an  end  to  the  world ;  every  one  else  in  this  dream  was 
dead ;  they  had  not  loved  enough ;  only  Aubrey  and 
she  were  alive,  and  he  ill  in  a  dim  cell  of  a  room  under- 
ground, out  of  a  tunneled  corridor;  she  tended  him, 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  203 

keeping  his  heart  up,  until,  going  out  about  some  of 
his  needs,  she  returned  to  see  the  earth  wall  of  the 
room  crumbling  loose,  and  then  the  bed-clothes  slip- 
ping away  into  shapelessness  too,  like  loose  sand. 
1  Yes,  of  course,  they  were  spun  out  of  dust,  they 
couldn't  cohere,"  she  was  hurriedly  telling  herself  in 
the  dream,  and  then  saw  that  his  hand,  where  it  lay  out 
on  the  sheet,  was  trickling  away  into  dust  too;  its  dust 
and  the  dust  of  the  sheet  streamed  over  the  edge  of 
the  bed  together  and  made  one  heap  on  the  floor;  then 
she  looked  for  his  face  and  awoke  and  lay  panting 
with  the  scream  still  stuck  in  her  throat.  And  then 
it  all  came  again  in  another  form,  and  then  another. 

She  told  him  only  the  last  of  these,  before  the  light 
of  release.  Night  throbbed  through  at  length;  as  soon 
as  one  bird  piped  it  seemed  fair  to  say,  "  I  have  fought 
it  through  now,"  and  to  go  to  her  eastern  window  to 
wait  for  the  sun,  to  make  sure  of  the  sun.  There  was 
a  little  table  there,  with  a  candle  on  it  and  things  for 
writing.  She  wrote  while  she  waited: — "I  have 
awaked  from  a  freakish  half-dream — that  you  were  at 
sea,  or  out  on  a  wild  heath,  I  couldn't  tell  which,  and  a 
storm  was  coming.  I  heard  it  pass  my  window  on 
its  way  to  you ;  all  the  garden  rustled  and  the  poplars 
must  have  shuddered  white,  I  thought — a  light  was 
thrown  up  on  the  ceiling,  but  I  couldn't  warn  you,  for 
some  reason,  and  then  the  rushing  thing  was  gone  past 
and  the  dead  leaves  danced  behind  it  like  bits  of  paper 
after  a  train;  I  was  too  late,  it  would  reach  you  before  I 
could ;  I  couldn't  warn  you.  How  good  to  wake  and  look 
out  into  the  garden !    Ancient,  immovable  stillness  out 


204  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

there — nothing  had  stirred  except  in  my  crazy  night- 
mare. It  was  all  right.  The  light  in  the  east  was  just 
beginning  to  draw  the  poplars  in  black,  with  an  edge 
like  black  lace,  flat  on  a  sky  like  a  sheet,  pearly  blue — " 

She  wrote  "was"  and  not  "is";  her  letter  must 
come  as  word  of  a  little  mischance  wholly  over,  not  as 
a  cry  out  of  distress.  Love  may  fear  all  things,  in 
secret,  but  hope  of  all  things  must  ring  in  its  voice. 
So  she  resolved,  but  day  lingered ;  could  she  be  even 
sure  that  the  candle  was  paling?  Remember,  the  blood 
was  low — she  had  hardly  slept,  and  it  had  been 
autumn's  first  frost ;  up  from  her  bare  feet  to  the  knees 
the  cold  numbed  her,  it  deadened  her  fingers  past  writ- 
ing. That  undid  her  again ;  for  the  writing  had 
helped;  stoutly  to  seem  to  be  of  good  heart  is  almost 
to  be  of  it.  Losing  the  pen  she  lost  hold  of  herself; 
the  leagued  agues  of  the  shuddering  flesh  and  of  ter- 
rified tenderness  shook  her  with  paroxysms  not  to  be 
mastered  at  first,  only  kept  from  convulsive  wailing 
by  dropping  down  on  her  knees  to  kill  down  thought, 
to  head  it  off,  instant  by  instant,  with  set  mechanic 
exercises  of  prayer. 

"  I  prayed  for  you  to  Mary,  Mother  of  God,"  she 
wrote  on,  when  she  could.  That  much,  perhaps,  she 
would  not  hide.  And  then  day  came ;  the  undiscour- 
aged  miracle  of  morning  broke  over  downs  of  dia- 
monded gray.  Friendly  and  faithful  flame!  Surely 
no  rocket  answering  a  spent  ship's  burning  cry  could 
ever  have  burst  a  ball  of  kinder  fire  against  the  domed 
ceiling  of  night. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

"  Some  veil  did  fall— I  knew  it  all  of  yore." 

D.  G.  Rossetti. 

IT  rained  itself  out  in  the  night  after  Aubrey  last 
wrote.  By  dawn  the  clouds  had  lifted  enough  to 
form  a  flat  awning ;  the  eye  saw  uncannily  far  in  the 
stratum  of  clean- washed  air  between  that  dark  roof 
and  the  ground. 

"  A  grand  day  for  a  view,"  said  the  priest,  after 
breakfast;  "you'd  like  to  step  up  to  a  place  that  I 
have  in  my  mind — not  above  a  few  perches  from  here. 
You'll  see  every  acre  that's  in  it."  He  fingered  his  hat 
nervously,  though  the  words  had  been  cold.  A  cold 
nervousness  had  been  freezing  their  talk  over  breakfast 
into  a  few  brittle,  impotent  icicle-stumps  of  polite  con- 
versation. 

Inland  the  awning  of  cloud  was  impaled  on  a  black 
mountain.  They  walked  a  mile  towards  its  foot,  with 
a  civil  fuss  about  who  should  go  first  at  each  stile. 
Then  Power  turned.     "  Will  you  look  now?  "  he  said. 

Aubrey  did.  As  he  turned,  moor,  mountain  and 
sea  composed  themselves  into  a  unity,  seemed  to  have 
modeled  themselves,  like  a  clay  that  was  its  own  sculp- 
tor, into  the  image  of — what  was  it?  "Why,  it's 
like — "     Aubrey  stared  at  the  effigy. 

"  Yes?  "    The  priest  waited. 

"  Like  a  bird's  foot  wading  into  the  sea." 

205 


206  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

"  Yes,"  said  the  priest,  with  a  smile  of  wintry  pa- 
tience, as  if  one  more  child  had  done  an  old  sum. 
\ubrey  thought  he  could  see  all  the  times  that  Power 
had  come  to  this  spot  to  show  English  strangers  his 
cure  of  stone  and  brine  and  to  watch  straw  fires  of  pity 
Hare  up  for  the  moment  in  their  eyes  and  voices. 
"  You're  struck  with  the  way  the  shank  of  the  leg 
comes  down  out  of  the  clouds?  And  the  size  of  the 
bird  you'd  imagine  above?  Did  you  ever  see  claws  the 
equals  of  those?  Or  a  match  for  the  venomous  clench 
they  have,  into  the  bottom  of  the  sea?  " 

Aubrey  was  looking.  The  seaward  foot  of  the 
mountain,  Mulvrack,  spread  into  five  spined,  convex 
promontories,  high  and  knuckle-like.  Their  aquiline 
ends  struck  downwards  into  the  silently  tumbling 
whiteness  of  distant  waves,  and  between  each  of  these 
claws  and  the  next  was  a  webbing  of  lower  land,  half 
submerged,  its  seaward  end  a  fiord.  To  the  side  of  one 
of  the  rocky  talons,  a  little  below  where  the  two  watch- 
ers stood,  but  high  above  the  sea,  there  adhered  a  hud- 
dle of  pigmy  haystacks. 

"  I've  lost  the  village,"  said  Aubrey. 

"  Didn't  you  take  it  for  haystacks,  now?  " — Power 
made  some  poor  joke — "  hard  to  find  needles,  ay,  or 
whole  cabins,  in  haystacks."  He  must  have  made  it 
before ;  his  smile  was  a  faded  one. 

Aubrey  stared  across  with  unreconciled  eyes  at  the 
kraal  of  mud  huts,  not  even  whitewashed;  dirt-col- 
ored, pendent,  they  seemed,  from  here,  to  stick  like 
swallows'  mud  nests  to  a  wall.  "  But  there  are  no 
people !  "  he  said. 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  207 

The  priest  pointed  a  great  way  down  to  the  shore. 
"  You  see  the  specks  stirring  below  there?  Half  out 
of  the  water?" 

"  Men?  "  Aubrey  asked,  with  his  eyes  on  them. 

"Ay,  and  women;  scraping  the  sea-weed  off  from 
the  rocks.  Look,  now."  Aubrey's  eye  followed  the 
priest's  pointing  finger.  Up  from  the  little  group  of 
amphibians  a  dotted  line  of  other  specks,  all  in  motion, 
ascended  crookedly  to  a  high  place  inland,  just  under 
the  awning  of  cloud,  where  the  naked  stone  of  the 
mountain  began  to  glisten  with  wet. 

"Women,  the  climbing  dots  are,"  said  the  priest; 
"  they  take  the  weed  up  on  their  heads.  Then  it's 
laid  on  the  slabs  you  see  shining  there." 

"Why?" 

"  Ach,  a  seed'll  strike  root  in  it,  all  in  good  time." 

Aubrey  was  puzzled ;  a  little  hurt  too.  He  thought : 
"  The  man  brought  me  out  here  to  see  how  bad  things 
were.     Now  he  makes  light  of  them." 

"  There's  an  advantage,"  Power  pursued.  '  When 
there's  a  frost  on  the  peak  there,  and  then  sun  in  the 
morning,  you'd  see  the  rock  come  rattling  down  from 
above  till  it's  ground  into  shale,  ay,  and  that  into 
sand,  almost,  to  mix  with  the  weed,  the  way  it  would 
soon  nourish  potatoes."  He  seemed  to  be  arguing 
now;  and  that  not  with  Aubrey  either,  but  with  some 
one  standing  beside  or  behind  him.  Power's  look,  too, 
went  that  way — past  Aubrey's  shoulder,  as  though  he 
stood  impeding  the  priest's  view  of  some  more  taking 
figure  or  scene,  of  the  mind's  making. 

Aubrey  groped  for  a  clue ;  dim  work  for  a  conscious 


208  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

heathen;  still,  it  absorbed  and  excited;  it  turned  him 
for  the  moment  into  a  being  of  faculties  happy  in  exer- 
cise, gleefully  nosing  at  new  trails,  because  they  are 
trails,  as  a  healthy  dog  does.  He  marveled;  so  the 
priest  could  go  into  trance;  the  priest  was  the  real 
thing;  he  had  the  stare  of  the  true  visionary  whose 
soul  is  holding  out  to  the  last  the  high-pitched  note  of 
some  difficult  beatitude.  Could  he  be  seeing,  up  there 
where  the  rocks  sent  down  from  above  came  to  rest, 
and  the  weeds  brought  up  from  below  were  laid,  his 
God  and  his  own  race  mystically  leagued  to  broaden 
the  life-bearing  earth  ?  Rare,  glorious  illusion,  good  to 
think  about.  Aubrey  admiringly  left  him  possessed 
until  any  more  silence  might  seem  like  comment. 
"  Could  they  not  fish?  "  he  asked,  to  set  their  tongues 
moving. 

"Is  it  fish?"  The  Father  looked  at  him  sharply. 
"  Fish,  on  a  coast  the  like  of  that?  ':  A  gesture  almost 
extravagant  called  to  witness  all  the  visible  miles  of  in- 
dented, harborless  stone  on  which  the  rollers  of  the 
Atlantic  were  breaking. 

"  Is  that  not  a  breakwater  ?  "  Aubrey  had  fancied 
he  saw  a  low,  ruler-drawn  line  that  ran  out  from  the 
end  of  one  of  the  claws  set  down  into  the  sea,  till  it 
almost  met  the  tip  of  another,  enclosing  a  tiny  space 
with  no  white  fret  in  it. 

"  Not  a  boat  is  there  in  it,"  said  Power,  as  if  he  were 
contradicting  a  slander.  "  They  did  make  an  offer,  a 
long  time  back,  at  fishing  of  some  description.  Many 
were  drowned  at  it,  one  way  and  another.  You'd  hear 
of  their  bodies  found  floating  away  in  the  North,  dear 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  209 

knows  how  far.  How  in  the  world  would  a  curagh* 
find  the  way  in  at  a  hole  like  the  door  of  a  house  in  the 
dark  night?  "  He  spoke  agitatedly,  pressing  his  case 
without  any  need  that  Aubrey  could  see,  and  then 
abruptly  dropping  it.  "  Step  with  me  this  way  a  min- 
ute," he  said,  and  led  the  way,  first  uphill  and  then  to 
the  right — the  South,  as  the  country  priest  called  it. 
In  this  way  they  crossed  from  the  ridge  of  the  upper 
tendon  of  one  of  those  stone  claws  to  that  of  the  next, 
so  that  a  new  hollow  came  into  sight  beyond  the  new 
ridge ;  and,  looking  into  the  new  hollow,  Aubrey  saw  a 
color  he  had  not  seen  since  Banturk.  Between  the 
white  breakers  below  and  the  faded  velveteen  brown  of 
the  mountain  moor  above  there  stretched  a  huge  mea- 
dow of  grass.  It  was  luscious ;  his  eye  loved  the  good 
green ;  how  it  must  wave  in  summer,  he  thought,  when 
gusts  blew  in  from  the  west  and  printed  on  it  in  fugi- 
tive shadings  the  scud  of  their  fan-shaped  pressure ! 

Power  was  eyeing  him.  "  Now,  isn't  that  the  good 
land?"  he  asked,  when  Aubrey  could  take  his  eyes 
from  it.  "  Not  a  century  back  it  was  stone,  as  naked 
as  where  they're  working  above.  Their  grandparents 
made  it  the  fat  earth  it  is.  They  were  put  out  of  it 
when  it  was  done;  they  had  to  do  it  again,  higher  up, 
and  again  higher  up,  and  their  children's  children  are 
at  it  to-day." 

"  It's  beastly,"  said  Aubrey,  flushing,  the  wrong  was 
so  vivid.     He  had  not  known  of  such  things. 

The  priest  did  not  concur  and  did  not  dissent.     He 

*A  curagh  is  a  rude  boat  made  of  canvas  stretched  over  a 
framework  of  wood. 


210  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

only  went  on.  "  Three  pounds  an  acre  they  pay  Mr. 
Newman  for  letting  them  turn  his  rock  into  pasture, 
for  him  to  lease  to  a  big  grazier  at  Croom;  that  and  a 
half-crown  apiece  for  leave  to  take  the  weed  from  his 
ocean  to  do  it  with.  If  it  should  go  on  a  thousand 
years  more  there'll  be  cows  to  the  tip  of  Mulvrack,  and 
not  a  tittle  left  of  Cusheen  but  a  few  stones  in  the  net- 
tles. Isn't  it  natural?  How  would  the  honey  be  got 
and  nobody  smoking  the  bees  out  that  made  it  ?  ' 

Aubrey  was  glad  of  the  irony.  It  was  of  this  world ; 
it  seemed  to  exhale  from  good  human  passions,  sane 
anger  and  scorn,  homely  and  sound-seeming  moods 
after  that  other  remote,  warped  mood  of  mystic  acqui- 
escence in  things  cruel  and  foul.  And  then,  in  a  mo- 
ment, the  satisfaction  was  gone ;  the  priest's  look  had 
seemed  to  dismiss  his  own  sarcasm ;  it  had  been  noth- 
ing to  him,  or  only  a  means  to  keep  Aubrey  off,  to 
hold  him  in  play  outside,  to  amuse  him,  after  his  kind, 
with  trifles,  while  others  unwound  behind  closed  doors 
the  innermost  coils  of  ecstasy.  Aubrey,  the  black- 
balled, the  sentenced  waiter  in  ante-rooms,  tried  to 
muster  a  civil,  cheerful  defiance;  he  braced  himself 
to  abide,  in  this  rarefied  air,  by  his  vulgar  judgments. 
"  It's  beastly,"  he  said,  "  beyond  words." 

The  priest  looked  him  over.  Aubrey's  eyes  were 
away  on  the  fenced  Eden  of  emerald ;  still,  he  felt  the 
look  through  his  skin,  and  what  the  look  meant,  as  he 
imagined — that  he  was  a  decent  heathen,  and  that,  in  a 
beast  which  must  go  on  its  belly  all  the  days  of  its  life, 
it  was  something  to  have  even  the  wish  to  put  some 
things  right  on  the  earth. 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  211 

"  There's  a  beauty  about  it,  too,"  Power  said,  in  a 
tone  of  secure,  proud  understatement,  as  he  might  have 
told  a  child,  who  could  pick  out  an  A,  that  there  are 
fine  things  in  books.  He  looked  Aubrey  over  again,  as 
if  seeking  some  point  on  his  person  at  which  the  right 
arrow,  if  one  could  find  it,  might  penetrate.  '  Would 
you  believe  it,"  he  said,  "  that  in  this  and  five  parishes 
round  there  was  never  heard  of  a  girl  that  went  wrong 
nor  a  theft  but  once  only?  '  Then  he  gave  up,  as  if  he 
had  suddenly  seen  or  just  remembered  that  it  was  of 
no  use.  "  Not  but  we're  beggars,"  he  broke  off  with  a 
little  laugh  of  rather  savage  humility.  "  Beggars  we 
are  and  taking  your  help  at  this  minute." 

Aubrey  could  almost  have  fancied  there  was  a  faint 
stress  on  the  "your."  "Taken  for  English  again!' 
he  thought.  To  lighten  the  talk  he  told  eagerly  how 
he  was  Irish ;  he  rummaged  his  mind  for  the  few  odd 
shreds  his  father  had  told  him  about  early  days — 
about  the  famine  and  cholera,  most  of  them — how  on 
a  country  ride  his  horse  would  shy  at  a  body  here  and 
a  body  there,  of  those  who  had  died  on  the  road. 

Queer  man  the  priest  was!  He  showed,  with  per- 
fect civility,  no  trace  of  interest.  He  could  not  have 
cared  less  if  this  sort  of  thing  happened  daily  and 
every  one  from  England  turned  Irish  on  his  hands. 
He  almost  snatched,  in  fact,  at  another  subject,  forcing 
it  into  connection  by  hurriedly  taking  up  Aubrey's  last 
word.  "  A  road  beyond  there — you  came  by  it  last 
night — was  made  in  the  Famine;  "  and  then  Power 
checked,  with  a  bitten  lip,  as  if  it  were  not  what  he 
would  have  said  if  he  had  waited. 


212  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

They  were  walking  already  across  rises  and  dips  m 
the  shabby  brown  gloss  of  the  moor,  towards  the  raw 
end  of  the  road.  It  stopped  a  mile  from  Cusheen  as  if 
its  desire  to  get  there  had  suddenly  failed.  From  the 
cut  end  of  this  artery  any  traffic  that  coursed  it  so  far 
had  to  spurt  out  on  the  open  moor;  thence  the  road 
only  pointed  the  way  to  its  aim.  From  where  the  last 
macadam  lay,  the  two  looked  up  the  road  inland;  it 
rose  for  a  furlong  or  two,  to  a  clear  sky-line,  and 
there,  drawn  large  and  dark  on  the  sky,  was  a  singular 
sight — a  man  descending  swiftly  on  Cusheen,  not  on 
the  road,  but  beside  it,  in  the  rough  of  the  moor,  mak- 
ing huge  strides  from  tussock  to  tussock  of  boggy  grass 
and  leaping  springily  across  the  drain  trenches. 

Power  named  him  almost  before  Aubrey  saw  that 
he  was  of  middle-age,  large-boned  and  fine-drawn  with 
hard  work  and  spare  feeding.  "  Horgan,  a  harvester, 
back  out  of  England." 

The  home-comer  had  to  be  greeted.  "  You're  hav- 
ing grand  exercise,  Horgan." 

"  I  am  that,  your  reverence.  The  drains  on  the 
shoulder  above  there  are  the  width  of  the  world.  And 
the  number!  Three  miles  or  four  have  I  walked  in 
standin'  leps,  out  of  twenty  that's  in  it  from  Croom." 

"  And  what  in  the  wide  world  is  wrong  with  the 
road?  "  Aubrey  heard  his  own  voice  trail  an  answering 
rhythm,  as  if  it  had  picked  up  a  tune  it  had  liked  once 
and  forgotten  afterwards. 

Horgan  looked  to  the  priest ;  he  seemed  to  implore 
extrication.  The  priest  gave  no  help;  he  looked 
troubled  himself. 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  213 

"  Whethen,"  Horgan  spluttered  it  out,  "  we  med 
up  our  minds,  the  whole  four  of  us,  three  and  twenty 
years  back,  that  we'd  not  put  a  fut  to  it — Francy  Joyce, 
an'  Kilfoyle,  an'  Michael  M'Gurk  an'  meself.  God  rest 
the  souls  of  the  three  of  them;  an',  while  I'll  last, 
please  God,  I'll  keep  off  it  enough  for  the  set  of  us." 

"  Ah,  you're  a  foolish  fellow,"  the  priest  chid,  with- 
out harshness,  as  if  a  child  had  made  itself  ill  with 
some  mad  labor  of  love. 

'  Well,  I'll  be  leggin'  it  home.  From  this  out  there's 
no  bother  about  it,"  said  Horgan,  eyeing  with  appro- 
bation the  roadless  mile  of  bog  that  remained. 

'Why  was  it?"  asked  Aubrey  when  Horgan  was 
gone. 

For  a  moment  the  priest  seemed  to  be  choosing  be- 
tween words.  The  ones  he  chose  were,  "  That  man 
was  a  cholera  baby." 

Odd  phrase ! — and  yet  Aubrey  knew  it.  Nothing 
is  lost  from  memory — only  stored  out  of  the  way,  and 
the  key  of  the  drawer  mislaid  for  a  while.  The  key 
turned  in  the  lock.  '  I've  heard  about  cholera  babies," 
he  said,  surprised  that  he  could  say  it. 

"You  have?" 

'  Some  one  or  other  told  me.  He'd  been  to  a  cholera 
hospital — some  sort  of  barn,  a  fitted-up  thing — and 
two  nurses  were  at  a  back  door  shaking  the  bodies  of 
dead  babies  out  of  their  night-shirts  on  to  a  heap  of 
other  small  bodies  they'd  done  with.  The  new  bodies 
slipped  about  on  the  heaped  ones." 

"  Horgan  was  treated  so." 

"Thrown  out  for  dead?" 


214  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

"  He  was  that.  He  was  born  in  the  Famine.  They 
went  for  the  rent  and  found  the  father  and  mother 
dead  on  the  floor,  and  she  with  her  mouth  full  of  grass 
she'd  been  chewing,  the  way  she  might  have  milk  for 
the  child.  I've  heard  the  child  was  past  crying;  noth- 
ing he'd  do  but  keep  his  mouth  open  and  move  his  head 
this  way  and  that,  like  a  young  bird  starving.  They 
took  it  for  cholera.  So  away  he  was  brought  and  put 
to  bed  in  the  cholera  barns  till  the  head  of  him  ceased 
moving,  and  then  I'll  engage  they  were  in  a  hurry, 
with  this  and  with  that,  and  there'd  be  another  child 
to  put  into  the  night-shirt." 

"  And  then?  "  The  priest  was  too  much,  with  his 
labored  coldness  of  tone.  Aubrey  was  modern  enough; 
anti-sentimentalism  was  good  in  his  eyes,  but  not  this 
stony  cataloguing  of  horrors.  It  was  not  honest  cal- 
lousness— that  he  was  sure  of ;  nor  yet  a  fair  overture, 
such  as  some  men  make  when  moved,  for  a  compact 
of  understatement;  it  was  a  blind,  a  fence,  another 
implement  of  exclusion.  And  why?  Aubrey  chafed. 
Need  one  be  thought  a  petrified  brute  for  not  being  a 
Catholic? 

"  Some  one  was  passing  that  thought  there  was  life 
in  the  child  and  took  it  home,  wrapped  it  up  warmly 
and  gave  it  nourishment — not  a  thing  else  did  it  need." 
The  priest's  voice  was  slow  and  frozen;  each  word,  as 
it  dripped,  was  like  a  drop  added  on  to  an  icicle. 

Still,  Aubrey  felt  better  now.  He  had  a  warming 
sense  of  the  deep,  plain  satisfactoriness  of  that  other 
man,  who  had  eyes  and  a  working  pity  and  knew  what 
to  do.     "  That  was  the  kind  of  man  to  have  passing," 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  215 

he  grunted,  trying  to  keep  a  firm  lip.     He  added,  in 
thought,  "  And  not  a  priest,  or  a  Levite." 

"  He  was  the  man,"  Power  said  with  a  gulp,  "  who 
made  the  road  at  your  feet." 

"Made  it?" 

"  Made  it  be  made.  A  Famine  relief  work.  He 
gave  them  no  rest  in  Dublin  till  they'd  set  about  it." 

"  Yet  Horgan  won't  use  it?  " 

"  You've  seen." 

"  Although  that  man  made  it  ?  " 

"  No,  but  because  he  did." 

Aubrey  stared  blankly.  It  was  not  lifelike,  all  this 
sailing  dead  against  strong  head  winds  of  natural  mo- 
tive; it  all  belonged  to  the  theater,  or  to  old  novels; 
people  in  Victor  Hugo,  people  who  only  existed  to  cap 
a  surprise  or  bring  clown  a  curtain,  might  be  like  that. 

The  priest  watched  him.  "  Ach,  don't  I  know,"  he 
said.  "  that  it's  foolishness !  '  To  the  Greeks,  foolish- 
ness.' Still — "  He  stopped.  His  gesture  was  one 
of  despair  of  prevailing  over  a  natural  darkness  like 
night.  It  was  as  if  he  said,  "  There  was  I  going  to 
talk  about  colors,  and  quite  forgot  you  were  born 
blind."  Then  his  courtesy  came  back  in  a  compunc- 
tious abundance.  "  You'd  like  to  get  on?  "  he  asked 
gently. 

They  left  the  amputated  end  of  the  road.  The 
Northerner's  correspondent  was  plunged  for  the  rest 
of  that  morning  in  economic  researches.  They  were 
a  joy  and  relief.  If  you  just  did  them  hard,  some- 
thing came.  It  was  like  rowing  a  boat.  And  if  some- 
thing good  came  it  would  seem  good  to  Mullivant. 


210  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

That  was  dead  sure.  There  was  still  a  world  where 
effect  followed  cause  and  the  better  was  always  pre- 
ferred to  the  worse.  As  Aubrey  went  on  with  his 
work  he  felt  a  hankering  love  for  plain  bread  and  thick 
wool  and  stout  timber.  In  the  back  of  his  mind  he 
made  lists  of  such  things,  and  of  people  like  them, 
plain  people  of  whole-meal  good  sense  and  fleecy  geni- 
ality and  oaken  staunchness.  Commonplace  thoughts 
for  a  "  brilliant  "  young  author;  but  he  was  in  a  queer 
place  and  was  not  sure  that  its  queerness  was  not  in- 
vading him;  so  he  felt  his  way  back  to  take  hold  of 
things  that  any  one  can  be  sure  of. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

"  It's  that  queer,  what  people  will  do  for  religion." 

From  the  Hedge  Schoolmaster's  Lucretius. 

AT  the  mid-day  meal  the  cold  was  intense  in  their 
talk.  To  Aubrey  the  priest's  house  had  grown 
horrible.  Everywhere  oil-cloth  and  oleographs  of 
saints  and  trashy  stained  glass  in  acrid  blues  and  fero- 
cious or  sugary  reds ;  it  worked  like  a  morgue  on  Au- 
brey; it  gave  him  cramp  in  the  jaws;  the  polite  words 
had  to  be  ground  out  singly. 

Still,  he  could  get  away  soon  to  his  room,  to  write, 
to  transfer  to  the  Northerner's  readers  the  blow 
that  Cusheen  gave  to  the  eye.  He  went  at  it  hard  and 
it  did  him  good ;  it  reassured  him  that  there  was  still 
work  on  which  the  will  could  put  itself  forth  as  the  fist 
does  in  punching  a  fixed  ball,  secure  of  an  unevasive 
resistance.  The  poor  devils  here  were  cut  off  as 
though  at  the  top  of  a  burning  house;  the  Brabburn 
people  had  ladders;  the  thing  was,  to  let  them  know. 
As  he  wrote,  the  job  bared  itself  down,  in  his  sight,  to 
a  quest  of  clear  loudness  and  speed  in  a  call  for  rescue. 
Such  work,  while  in  hand,  makes  all  things  simple 
and  turns  many  courses  to  one.  At  least  it  arrests  or 
suspends  perplexity  and  misgivings.  There  was  June 
— their  way  on  together  ran  up  into  mists,  as  if  it  were 
up  Mulvrack ;  well,  wherever  it  went,  they  might  hold 
together  not  the  less  tightly  for  his  having  got  this 

217 


218  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

tiling  done.  There  was  the  priest,  with  his  frigid  sig- 
naling to  a  fellow  across  estranging  deeps ;  it  hurt  to 
be  on  such  terms  with  any  one;  still,  the  priest  was  a 
saint,  surely  enough,  and  a  saint  must  have  got  hold 
of  Tightness,  whatever  queer  end  he  gripped  of  it; 
then,  whatever  was  right  must  somehow  be  all  of  a 
piece ;  its  bits  must  fit  in  together  at  last,  like  a  puzzle 
map,  to  make  up  one  whole,  though  they  looked  hard 
to  assort,  certainly.  So,  if  this  thing  were  worth 
doing,  at  least  he  could  stand  no  worse  with  Power 
for  putting  it  through. 

He  had  heard  that  the  post  went  at  sunset.  The 
letter-box  was  below,  Power  said,  as  he  gave  Aubrey 
tea  some  three  hours  later.  It  stood  in  the  village 
"  square."  "  Will  you  give  me  your  letters  to  post? '; 
Power  asked.  "  I'd  as  lief  walk  one  way  as  the 
other." 

No;  Aubrey  would  have  no  marble  pillars  of 
churches  mobilizing  themselves  to  run  with  his  letters. 
He  said  he  wanted  some  air  and  a  smell  of  the  sea. 
The  priest  said  he  would  show  him  the  way. 

Aubrey's  spirits  were  up,  with  the  craftsman's  heat 
still  aglow  in  his  head.  Was  his  host  really  free?  he 
asked  eagerly.  Yes.  Would  it  tire  the  Father  if  they 
went  down  to  the  shore  now,  instead  of  to-morrow,  to 
see  the  weed-gathering? 

"  Ach,  is  it  tire?':  Aubrey  liked  the  sound-limbed 
priest's  disdain  of  the  idea.  Power  looked  at  his 
watch.  There  was  an  hour  till  dark.  Work  would  be 
ceasing,  but  two  or  three  of  the  creatures  would  be  at 
it  yet ;  John  Devine  certainly,  while  he  could  see ;  John 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  219 

was  queer  in  the  head,  and  never  any  great  hand  at  the 
work,  and  must  stick  to  it  longer  before  he'd  have  as 
much  done  as  another.  Power  talked  on  about  this 
John  diffusely,  as  if  perhaps  he  wanted  to  think  about 
something  else  and  must  run  up  a  screen  of  words  be- 
hind which  to  do  it. 

The  thin  final  segment  of  the  sun  was  dropping  be- 
yond the  high  wall  of  fore-shortened  sea  when  they 
left  the  house;  before  they  had  gone  the  three  hundred 
yards  to  the  Cusheen  cabins  the  last  ray  was  gone,  the 
wall  of  sea  was  cold  black,  fretted  with  cold  white, 
and  the  wind,  which  had  never  stopped,  went  whim- 
pering about  like  a  starved  thing  in  the  clear,  colorless 
light.  Fugitive,  apprehensive  and  cruel,  in  that  light, 
if  in  any,  you  might  think  that  malice  herself  was 
abroad ;  it  makes  children  impish.  As  Power 
and  Aubrey  came  into  the  "  square  "  at  one  end — it 
was  no  square,  only  a  small  space,  a  triangular  gan- 
glion made  by  the  meeting  of  three  rough  tracks,  with 
hovels  about  it — two  urchins  of  nine  or  ten  were  con- 
fessing the  influence  of  the  hour.  The  hour  itself  was 
told  at  the  middle  point  of  the  "  square,"  on  a  public 
clock  at  the  top  of  a  small,  neat  column,  an  odd  sight 
in  a  west  coast  village.  Suddenly  one  boy,  possessed 
by  peremptory  inspiration,  picked  up  a  handful  of  mud 
and  flung  it,  with  the  address  of  a  marksman,  full  in 
the  white  face  of  the  clock.  For  a  moment  he  mused 
on  the  success  of  this  defilement,  before  communicat- 
ing it  to  his  friend. 

"  Jemmy,"  he  said,  "  I'm  just  after  throwin'  a  gran' 
slam  of  mud  at  th'  ould  divil's  clock." 


220  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

Jemmy  reviewed  the  good  work  benignly.  "  Th' 
ould  divil!'  he  said  with  assenting  aversion.  Both 
picked  up  more  mud. 

"  Be  off  out  of  that,"  the  priest  called.  They  fled 
to  earth  somewhere  between  the  cabins,  with  rabbit 
promptitude,  but  their  voices  were  faintly  heard  con- 
tumaciously chanting  far  off,  "  We'll  hang  ould  

on  a  sour  apple-tree."  "  Ould  " — what  ?  What  was 
the  name?  Aubrey  could  not  quite  catch  it  where  it 
recurred  in  this  litany  of  derision,  and  yet  he  thought 
he  had  caught  it  the  first  time,  and  yet  he  could  not 
say  now  what  it  was  that  he  thought  he  had  caught, 
so  elvish,  at  times,  are  sense  and  recollection  as  well  as 
boys. 

Father  Power  looked  vexed;  he  walked  faster,  si- 
lently, down  towards  the  sea.  The  ground  became 
broken;  it  kept  Aubrey's  eyes  on  his  feet  for  some 
minutes.  When  he  looked  up  the  straight  line  he  had 
seen  from  above,  ruled  on  the  sea  as  though  on  paper, 
was  close  below — a  little  stone  pier,  rude  but  sufficient, 
holding  a  snug,  minute  haven.  Not  a  craft  was  there 
in  it  of  any  kind. 

Aubrey  turned  to  the  Father,  wondering.  At  the 
pier's  head  a  beacon  was  blinking  into  brightness,  kind 
and  jocund  in  the  first  twilight,  but  strangely  idle  above 
that  boatless  sea.  Along  the  pier  a  man  was  walking 
landward ;  he  must  have  lit  the  lamp. 

"  It  was  not  the  want  of  a  light,  then — ?  "  Aubrey 
began.  The  priest  could  not  have  lied  that  morning. 
There  must  be  some  honest  clue  to  this  riddle.  Aubrey 
was  sure  the  priest  had  not  lied. 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  221 

Power  opened  his  hands,  as  one  throws  up  a  game. 
"  I  deceived  you,"  he  said;  "  I  tried  to." 

"Why?" 

"  I'm  not  flint."  He  gave  Aubrey  a  new  look  of 
remote  and  melancholy  kindness.  It  lasted  some  sec- 
onds, as  though  it  might  stay  there  till  more  were  said. 
Then  it  wavered  and  fell  off ;  a  gap  seemed  to  break  in 
the  straight  line  of  a  purpose.  Still,  he  went  on  as  if 
through  each  stage  of  that  mustering  and  flagging  of 
a  resolve  Aubrey's  thought  must  have  kept  step  with 
his  and  would  be  where  it  stood  when  it  found  speech 
again.  "  When  he  saw  the  rate  they  were  drowned, 
at  the  fishing,  he  sold  a  farm  that  he  had  at  Kilmurry 
and  hired  a  party  of  masons  and  smiths  from  the  town 
and  went  out  with  them  daily.  Great  work  they  had 
at  the  start  with  the  rock  that  the  light  is  on,  and  it 
only  bare  of  the  sea  for  one  hour  or  two  in  the 
twelve." 

"The     breakwater,     too — that     man     made     it?' 
Aubrey  glanced  up  to  where,  high  on  the  moor,  the 
contemned  road  ran  white  to  its  abrupt  end. 

"  Ay  did  he,  of  strong  stone.  It'll  last  till  there's 
nothing  but  cows  to  look  at  it  here,  coughing  out  in 
the  fields  that  Cusheen'll  be  then — they  or  the  one  man 
that's  paid  to  be  minding  the  lamp  and  keeping  the 
clock  beyond  at  it  for  ever." 

"  He  saw  to  that,  too?" 

"  Ay,  in  his  will.    There's  no  end  to  it." 

Aubrey  digested  it,  looking  about  him.  Behind 
them  six  struck  on  the  clock  that  had  undergone  the 
lustral  pollution — a  tinkling  chime,  rather  melodious; 


222  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

it  sounded  innocent.  Things  were  all  in  a  tale.  '  So 
that  put  an  end  to  their  fishing?  "  he  said,  not  needing 
to  be  told. 

"  I  don't  say  they're  wise,"  Power  said.  "  I've  told 
them  they're  fools.  But  they're  holy."  He  spoke  as 
a  parent  might  of  a  daughter  who  starved  to  keep 
chaste.  "  Ah,  then,  aren't  there  terms,"  he  broke  out, 
as  though  entreating  Aubrey,  for  pity's  sake,  to  see 
through  the  dark,  "  on  which  you'd  be  offered  good 
things  and  have  every  right  in  the  world  to  accept 
them,  and  yet — "  He  made  again  that  gesture  of  giv- 
ing it  up. 

Aubrey  thought,  "  My  paganism  again?  Darkness 
is  darkness — that's  what  he  means,  I  suppose."  '  He 
did  it  on  terms,  then?  "  he  said. 

"  Not  at  the  time.  The  terms  came  of  what  he  did 
after.  Ah,  wouldn't  a  man — "  Power  plunged  off 
again,  giving  himself  to  another  quick  gust  of  invited 
passion,  as  if  he  must  speak  so,  or  not  get  words  at 
all — "  wouldn't  a  man  that  had  had  an  old  coat,  or  a 
new  one  itself,  for  a  present  from  Judas  throw  it  away, 
and  he  stiff  with  the  cold,  the  time  he  heard  who  had 
sold  the  Lord  God?" 

"  Isn't  Judas  set  free  for  an  hour,  each  Christmas, 
for  having  given  a  leper  a  coat?  ' 

"  Ay,  but  how're  we  to  know  the  leper  didn't  perish 
of  cold  in  the  end  liefer  than  make  use  of  it  after? ': 

Aubrey  considered.  He  then  said:  "You  say  God 
was  betrayed  in  Cusheen?  " 

Power  paused.  The  gust  had  sunk  that  had  lifted 
him.     He  spoke  now  as  if  in  compunction,  saying  no 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  223 

more  than  he  must.  "  He  was  parish  priest  here  for 
eight  years.  See  the  place  that  it  is.  Wouldn't  he  be 
entitled  to  feel  he  was  trusted  by  God  almost  out  of 
His  sight?  And  to  break  his  vows  then!  And  the 
poor  woman !  " 

Aubrey's  thoughts  ran  on  the  faster.  Things  rushed 
to  connect  themselves,  headlong.  This  was  what  June 
had  on  her  mind,  here  was  the  faith  that  did  miracles, 
the  lives  not  to  be  taken  as  gifts  from  an  apostate,  the 
wrong  done  to  these  people  by  that  pair  of  whom  one 
shamed  her  by  being  of  her  blood.  He  thought  it  out, 
first  to  himself  for  some  way,  and  then,  where  the 
roads  of  conjecture  forked,  out  aloud.  '  He  was  akin 
to  Miss  Hathersage?" 

"  He  was  not,"  Power  answered. 

"  He  married  her  kinswoman?  " 

"  No  priest  could  marry." 

"At  law,  I  mean?" 

"  God  marries;  not  law.  Would  He  sanction  a  per- 
jury?" 

"Still— at  law?" 

Power  shrugged.    "  Does  it  matter?  " 

"  To  them,  perhaps,  not.  But,  say  they  had  a 
child?—" 

The  priest  was  distressed ;  Aubrey  could  see  it.  He 
thought  Power  looked  like  a  woman  affronted  by  some 
loose  speech,  and  he  was  sorry.  '  I  understand,"  he 
conceded  hurriedly,  "  it  would  be,  anyhow,  only  a  child, 
in  your  eyes,  of  illicit  love?" 

"  Ay,  and  worse." 

"Of  adultery?" 


224  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

"  Worse  than  that." 

"Incest?" 

"  Ay.  Do  you  think  any  woman  could  go  to  con- 
fession and  she  not  able  to  speak  to  the  priest  the  way 
a  motherless  girl  would  speak  to  her  father  at  home  ?  ' 

"  Is  that  how  all  Catholics  think? — the  Hathersages, 
for  instance?  " 

"Think?    Of  the  son?" 

Oh,  there  was  a  child,  then,  Aubrey  mused,  still 
piecing  away  in  his  mind. 

The  priest  went  on,  picking  words  as  with  effort : 
"  They're  proud,  and  they're  pious?  " 

'What!  Guy?':  Aubrey's  mind,  working  within 
at  its  inferences,  came  out  for  an  instant  to  smile  at 
the  door. 

'  Guy  is  a  good  practical  Catholic.  So  is  his  father. 
The  women  are  that  and  more  to  it.  The  mother  had 
one  other  sister  and  " — so  it  was  June's  maternal  aunt 
that  married  this  priest  who  broke  free;  Aubrey 
caught  it  up  swiftly — "  the  poor  girl  was  taking  her 
vows  at  the  time,  at  Rathfarnham;  the  shame  almost 
killed  her.  Mrs.  Hathersage  never  could  rest  till  she 
died,  for  wanting  to  make  it  up  to  the  creatures  here 
for  the  loss  they  were  at  by  their  piety.  Now  it's  the 
same  with  the  girl.  Not  one  of  them  all  could  have 
lived  but  for  hoping  that  all  these  years  would  fade  out 
the  mark  of  dirt  they  had  on  them  all.  God  knows 
what  they'd  do  if  it  ever  came  back  on  what's  left  of 
them." 

"  How  could  it?  "  Aubrey  asked  idly.  His  thought 
was  more  practical.     What  a  non-Catholic  he  was! 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  225 

And,  if  this  were  true,  that  the  priest  was  saying,  what 
a  Catholic  June !  There  were  hazards  before  them. 
But  hazards  are  challenges,  opportunities;  so  they  are 
good.     He  felt  strong  and  secure. 

The  priest  was  replying :  "  The  world's  not  so  large. 
God  knows  how  soon  any  person  at  all  might  meet 
with  another." 

Really  the  man  was  fantastic,  poor  zealot,  thought 
Aubrey.  "  Well,  there  are  pretty  good  odds  against 
it,"  Aubrey  said  cheeringly. 

"Mind  now,"  said  Power;  "it's  slippery  work  on 
these  stones."  They  were  down  within  reach  of  the 
flying  spray  now;  they  walked  over  rounded  rocks 
slimy  with  weed.  "  Where  at  all  is  Devine?  "  said  the 
priest.  On  the  way  they  had  met  other  sheep  of  his 
flock,  gaunt  and  blue  with  long  wading,  and  now 
trailing  dead  feet  uphill.  "  Not  a  one  is  left  at  it 
but  he." 

He  knows  each  one,  as  if  they  were  not  sheep 
merely,  but  cows,  Aubrey  thought,  as  they  pressed  on, 
over  the  splashed  stones.  The  priest  was  quickening. 
"Where  in  the  wide  world — ?'  he  muttered,  and 
then,  again,  "  What  were  they  all  about,  to  leave  him 
in  that  way  ?  '  And  then,  "  And  he  the  creature  he  is, 
as  apt  to  do  any  one  thing  as  another!  '  He  was  run- 
ning now,  this  way  and  that,  slipping  and  using  his 
hands  to  keep  up,  with  his  hat  pushed  back  from  a 
forehead  hot  with  anxiety  as  well  as  haste ;  from  each 
fresh  stone  that  he  topped  he  peered  outward  to  where 
the  waves  at  its  seaward  base  were  thumping  and 
splitting. 


226  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

"  I'll   engage   it   was  here   he   was  working,"   said 
Power,  scrambling  on  to  another  smooth  and  high  boss 
with  a  wet  nap  of  green;  and,  surely,  from  there  they 
saw  a  singular  sight.     Eight  or  ten  yards  out  to  sea, 
as  if  drawn  away  from  the  rocks  by  a  backwash,  a 
short,  shapeless  bundle  of  cloth  was  floating,  most  of 
it  under  water,  but  part  still  emergent  and  dry  and 
looking  unnatural  there,  and  horrible.    The  priest  gave 
a  sob  and  slid  over  the  edge  of  the  rock  into  eight  feet 
of  water  and  struck  out  with  short,  clumsy  strokes  for 
the  bundle.    Then  Aubrey  first  saw  that  it  was  a  man's 
back,   with   the  head  and   legs  hanging  down  under 
water.     Luckily  Aubrey  had  a  good  high  take-off  on 
that  rock;   he   could   dive   pretty   well  half   the   way 
through  the  air,  and,  swimming  hard  from  the  instant 
his  own  body  was  under,  he  opened  his  eyes  to  see 
the  drowning  man  bulk  dim  between  them  and  the  day- 
light above,  the  pendent  head  and  legs  like  the  ends  of 
the  golden  fleece  on  a  coat  of  arms.    Aubrey  came  up 
outside  it  and  had  the  man  fast  by  the  back  of  the 
clothes,  with  the  drooping  head  held  clear  of  the  water, 
when,  as  his  eyes  sought  the  shore,  he  felt  a  glow  of 
delight  that  almost  made  him  cry.     The  priest  was  ar- 
riving— the    old    brick! — the    most    absurd,   beautiful 
sight  in  the  world,  with  his  little,  ineffectual  strokes 
and  grave,  intent  look,  and  the  black  coat  ballooning 
high  over  his  back  with  all  the  air  from  about  the  rest 
of  his  person  gone  into  it. 

There  was  work  for  ten  minutes,  to  bring  the  three 
in  to  the  little  spit  of  stones,  between  bigger  rocks, 
where  Devine  had  been  scraping  weed  when  a  wave 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  227 

took  his  tired  feet  from  under  him.  Aubrey  feared  at 
one  moment  that  Power  was  done  for;  he  had  to  be 
helped;  but  on  shore  he  toiled  again  like  a  good  one 
and  knew  what  to  do:  how  to  empty  the  water  out  of 
their  man,  where  to  rub,  and  the  way  the  arms  should 
be  worked  to  set  the  lungs  going,  if  it  could  be  done. 
They  labored  absorbedly ;  minutes  it  might  have  been 
for,  or  hours,  for  all  they  could  tell.  No,  though ;  it 
could  not  be  hours :  it  was  not  dark  yet  when  Devine 
began  to  splutter  and  fight  in  their  hands  and  wail  in 
the  Gaelic,  "Not  into  the  sea  again!'  And  when 
Aubrey  and  Power  were  free  to  look  at  each  other 
across  him,  each  had  light  to  see  that  the  other's  face 
was  green  with  these  last  urgent  minutes  of  terror. 
That  exchange  gave  them  an  instant  of  vast,  flowless 
pleasure;  each  found  out  the  other,  and  lo!  what  he 
found  was  himself.  It  was  like  one  of  the  fugitive 
beatitudes  that  visit  a  few  moments  of  awaking,  when 
some  happy  thought  comes  first  and  nothing  else  is 
remembered  yet.  Then  they  remembered  other  things, 
as  the  awakened  sleeper  does. 

They  could  not  rest  yet.  Devine  was  burnt  and 
stabbed  with  pains  as  the  blood  moved  again;  he  had 
worked  foodless  all  day  and  was  for  collapsing  and 
trying  to  sleep.  He  had  to  be  hustled  homeward  and 
finally  shouldered  by  Aubrey,  the  priest  trotting  stoutly 
beside  the  big  younger  man,  showing  the  way  through 
the  dusk  and  telling  Devine,  as  hearteningly  as  his  own 
chattering  teeth  would  permit,  of  the  great  glass  of  grog 
that  would  surely  be  lawful  for  once,  and  he  perishing. 

It  was  dark  when  they  left  Devine's  cabin;  darker 


228  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

than  it  would  be  soon,  for  clouds  were  packing  away 
and  on  the  horizon  a  luminousness  that  spread  as  it 
mounted  showed  where  the  moon — what  was  left  of 
the  mighty  moon  of  Mill  Hill — was  about  to  rise. 
They  had  chattered  till  then,  to  keep  Devine's  mind 
running  on  the  right  things,  as  a  man  makes  a  noise 
to  a  horse  while  grooming  it.  Now  they  fell  wholly 
silent.  It  was  a  short  way  they  still  had  to  walk,  but 
rough;  the  priest  knew  every  yard  by  its  feel;  Aubrey 
did  not;  once  he  stumbled  slightly  over  a  stone.  The 
priest's  arm  was  in  his  in  a  moment.  '  God  help  you, 
God  help  you!  "  he  said  in  a  voice  of  extraordinary 
kindness. 

Aubrey  laughed.  '  No  harm  done."  But  when 
they  came  into  the  lamplight  within  the  priest's  door, 
there  was  still  on  the  priest's  face  the  look  of  hurt  and 
sore  compassion  that  it  must  have  had  when  he  spoke, 
for  the  voice  had  been  that  look  made  audible. 

"  Off  and  away  with  you  now  to  your  room,"  he 
said ;  they  had  kicked  off  their  boots  in  the  hall,  on  the 
ugly  oil-cloth,  under  the  paraffin  lamp  and  the  oleo- 
graphs of  martyrs.  Power  was  playing  the  brisk,  im- 
perious host,  but  it  was  a  manner  superimposed;  that 
other  mood,  of  a  tormented  affection  or  pity,  showed 
through  it. 

Insensibly  Aubrey  reacted,  resisted.  He  would  not 
be  fathered;  he  was  autonomous;  he  was  all  right. 
Yes,  he  would  change  his  clothes,  he  said,  but  no  bed 
or  hot  bottles  for  him ;  he  had  liked  the  bathe. 
Whisky?  Yes,  that  would  be  jolly,  and  then  he  would 
turn  out  and  walk  himself  warm  before  supper. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

"Far  back,  through   creeks   and  inlets  making, 
Comes  silent,  flooding  in,  the  main." 

Clough. 

THERE  was  only  one  way  Aubrey  could  walk :  the 
one  road  was  to  Banturk.  He  caught  its  raw 
end  by  the  white  gleam  on  the  blackening  moor,  and 
strode  along,  always  faster  and  faster.  The  blood 
tingled  back  into  fingers  and  toes ;  into  the  brain  too, 
no  doubt,  for  soon  thought  was  astir  and  bubbling;  it 
danced  and  sang  through  him.  What  liquor  the 
priest's  was ! — brown  velvet  and  honey  and  amber  and 
Rembrandt  and  old  fiddle  varnish — trains  of  similes 
for  it  tripped  across  the  hot  mind.  And  the  priest, 
what  a  staunch  old  Trojan !  Soft-hearted  too — he  had 
gurgled  over  Devine  like  a  mother  cat.  And  decent  to 
Aubrey,  the  heathen,  too.  And  then  there  were  all  his 
ruthful  withholdings  and  temperings  of  Athanasian 
curses  on  that  other  heathen,  the  breakwater-builder. 
What  a  man  that  must  have  been,  too !  He  would  have 
to  tell  June  what  he  thought  of  that  man. 

Aubrey  tried  to  figure  him  clearly,  piecing  him  out 
from  the  things  that  Power  had  said  of  him.  They 
were  but  small  things — he  felt  that  the  more,  now  that 
he  made  them  all  come  back;  they  were  false  starts, 
each  had  begun  and  then  stopped,  and  each  had  been 

229 


230  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

said  with  a  wince  and  a  picking  of  phrases,  as  if  some 
sting  had  to  be  taken  out  in  the  wording.  And  yet  this 
man  of  the  light  and  the  clock  and  the  road  was  real 
and  vivid,  even  poignantly  real,  as  those  people  are 
whom  one  knows  best  of  all ;  his  takings  of  means  to 
ends  were  all  touching,  like  those  of  a  friend  alone  in  a 
house  at  night  and  seen  from  outside  a  window. 
Aubrey  could  swear  he  knew  just  what  that  man  had 
felt  when  the  infant  Horgan  re-embraced  the  grand 
adventure  of  living.  Why,  Aubrey  could  hear  what 
the  man's  very  voice  had  been  like. 

They  were  strange,  these  priests;  they  were  all  of  a 
piece,  or  a  piece  of  them  all  was.  O'Keel  had  his 
touch  of  Power's  own  visible  twinge  of  controlled 
compunction  towards  Aubrey.  All  these  priests  had 
had  it,  only  each  more  than  the  last,  ever  since  Aubrey 
had  landed.  No,  that  was  wrong;  it  was  since  the 
time  he  saw  the  Archbishop.  It  had  begun  from  the 
moment  of  that  little  boast  of  his,  surely  harmless 
enough,  of  his  mother's  kinship  to  one  of  their  own 
august  selves,  the  Cardinal.  Yet  they  were  different 
men,  all  these  like-mannered  priests.  The  mind  could 
not  vision  the  archepiscopal  chaplain  going  to  work 
as  Power  had  done  on  the  plain,  humdrum,  secular 
job  of  landing  Devine — mere  physical  sport  for  Au- 
brey's young  strength,  as  he  knew,  but  a  tax  on  cour- 
age in  those  non-amphibians.  O'Keel,  again,  would 
not  have  looked  just  the  way  Power  did,  that  time 
when  the  boys  scuttled  off  in  the  twilight  between 
cabin  walls,  singing,  "  We'll  hang  ould  " — ould  what 
was  it  ?    What  was  it  ?    He  found  he  was  importuning 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  231 

his  memory   now  as  he  might  have  asked  a  doctor 
whether  an  illness  of  June's  was  mortal. 

The  man  had  been  Aubrey's  father.  He  walked 
back  to  Cusheen  knowing  it.  No  one  had  told  him. 
The  knowledge  rose  up  in  him  like  a  night  flood,  fur- 
tive and  sudden.  At  one  moment  it  seemed  as  if  no 
conscious  suspicion  or  fear  were  pressing;  the  next, 
all  the  dikes  gave  together ;  the  long  effort,  secret  even 
from  his  own  sense,  to  bank  out  each  trickling  advance 
of  the  oncoming  deluge  was  quite  over.  "  We'll  hang 
ould  Browne  " — why,  one  lobe,  or  whatever  it  was,  of 
his  mind,  had  heard  it  clearly;  the  other  had  only  just 
managed  to  hush  it  up.  And  every  look  and  tone  of 
these  priests  had  been  throwing  the  fact  at  his  eyes  and 
ears.  More  than  that,  he  felt  now  as  if  he  had  all  but 
known  it  since  he  was  a  child ;  it  was  the  only  key  that 
there  could  ever  have  been  to  so  many  of  the  silences 
of  home. 

The  end  gave  him  no  pain  at  first.  They  say  a  good 
bullet  traveling  fast  will  go  through  your  vitals  so 
cleanly  that  you  may  be  left  not  writhing  nor  even 
bleeding  much,  but  only  musing,  "  I'm  done  for,"  or, 
with  detachment,  "  That  other  poor  buffer  that  was 
'  I '  is  done  for,"  and  taking  in  whatever  there  is  to  see 
— high  grass  or  cairned  stones  or  things  going  on  in 
the  sky — with  the  eager  liking  the  spirit  has  for  the 
concrete  things  of  which  it  is  to  take  leave.  So  Aubrey 
at  first  felt  a  kind  of  dry  pity,  as  if  for  some  man  in 
a  semi-vivid  book  who  had  set  out  on  his  way  whis- 
tling, like  other  people,  and  then  some  brute  of  an  un- 
killed  force  had  broken  loose  from  the  dark  ages  and 


232  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

mauled  him.  He  could  not  feel  more  than  that  yet ;  he 
was,  indeed,  unconsciously  resting,  as  hunted  fugitives 
find  a  great  peace  at  first  when  they  are  caught.  But 
the  place  at  which  he  was  hit  had  become  already 
curiously  memorable.  The  first  Cusheen  cabin  was 
near;  squat  under  its  thatch  it  thrust  a  rude  angle, 
anyhow,  out  at  the  track,  now  no  longer  a  road ;  in  a 
window,  a  squalid,  square  port-hole  in  mud,  a  candle 
just  lit  was  struggling  and  blinking  into  steadier  flame. 
He  had  a  rather  hunger-like  thought  of  the  state  of 
those  who  were  round  that  bleared  light,  to  whom 
nothing  had  happened. 

The  priest,  crouching  over  the  parlor  fire,  looked 
up  from  his  Latin  A-Kempis  when  Aubrey  came  in. 
The  priest  saw,  directly.  He  made  Aubrey  sit  in  a 
chair  and  stood  behind  him  with  both  hands  on  his 
shoulders.     "  You  know  ?  "  Power  said. 

"  Yes." 

The  priest,  in  misery,  pressed  and  stroked  the  big 
shoulders.  "  Ah,  you're  the  kind,  bold  fellow,"  he  al- 
most wailed.  "  You've  been  it  this  day,  and  will  al- 
ways." 

The  wheedling's  beginning,  thought  Aubrey.  He 
made  a  hard  voice.  "  You  want  me  to  skulk  away 
into  the  dark." 

"  Is  it  '  dark  '  ?  Isn't  it  two  weeks  only,  or  three, 
since  ever  you  set  eyes  on  your  cousins  ?  And  is  it  out 
of  the  sky  the  sun  would  be  dropping  now  if  they  were 
to  go  their  own  way  from  this  out,  and  you  yours?  ': 

"  Yes."  Aubrey  was  beaten  too  weary  to  hold  up 
secrets  now. 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  233 

The  priest's  hands  ceased  for  an  instant  to  press 
Aubrey's  shoulders.  Then  they  urged  down  again 
warmly  as  if  instant  in  some  caressing  adjuration,  be- 
fore he  could  muster  the  words  he  wanted.  "They 
say  there  was  once  a  village  in  England,  maybe  the  size 
of  Cusheen,  and  those  that  were  in  it  found  the  Great 
Plague  had  come  to  them,  God  knows  how,  all  the 
great  way  from  London ;  and  what  did  they  do  but 
shut  themselves  up  from  the  world,  the  way  it  would 
burn  itself  out  in  them  only?  Skulkers  off  into  the 
dark  would  any  one  say  that  they  were?  Or  is  it 
heroes  and  martyrs?  " 

Aubrey  listened  and  noted  intently,  ploddingly,  with 
an  impassioned  diligence.  How  would  June  see  it 
all?  He  had  to  make  that  out;  he  must  take  means  to 
that  end.  The  Catholic  June,  the  directress  of  her 
whom  he  knew,  was  unknown  to  him,  only  surmised 
and  dimly  feared  as  an  estranging  sea  of  un fathomed 
depth.  He  must  plumb  it,  if  only  conjecturally,  by 
taking  soundings  of  Power  and,  through  him,  of  these 
devotees  in  the  mass.  He  asked,  in  his  matter-of-fact 
way,  "  Something  immodest,  noisome — you'd  feel  I 
was  like  that?  " 

The  priest  was  in  torment.  "  The  acts  of  the 
fathers,  you  know — they're  '  visited.'  " 

"  Oh,  say  '  sins  '  if  you  like;  it  can't  harm  my  father 
with  me."  Aubrey  returned  to  the  quest.  '  A  Cath- 
olic woman,  we'll  say — she'd  feel  the  house  stinking, 
round  her,  with  me  in  it?  " 

Again  the  poor  priest  shied  away.        The  children 


234  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

reap  whirlwinds;  isn't  it  nature?  Ah,  come  away  to 
your  supper." 

Over  the  food  they  talked  about  rents  and  the 
orient  hope  of  land  purchase,  and  how  kelp  was  burned 
and  the  product  sold  to  makers  of — iodine,  was  it,  or 
some  iodide  ?  Aubrey  forgot  which,  and  came  back  to 
Power,  just  before  bedtime,  to  get  it  right  for  the 
Northerner.  Lights  were  out  in  the  house  at  eleven, 
Aubrey's  the  last.  In  bed,  with  his  journey-work 
done,  he  let  loose  his  imaging  mind.  It  fell  to,  like  a 
draftsman  long  starved  of  paper;  it  drew  him  June 
posed  as  she  stood  that  time  when  she  spoke  of  women 
who  would  not  take  a  gift  of  a  son's  life  from  a  rec- 
reant. How  she  glowed  now  in  his  vision,  and  grew 
taller  again,  a  very  pillar  of  exaltation!  He  did  not 
reason  now,  but  evoked  sequent  images,  or  they  came ; 
cause  and  effect  rose  before  him  in  pictures  of  June — 
June  drawing  in,  like  flowers  at  night,  on  a  light  word 
from  Guy  about  prayer;  June  awesome  in  towering 
scorn  of  that  ribald  woman's  chatter  with  Newman; 
June  crying,  "  I  love  them  for  it ;  I  love  them  "  at 
thought  of  these  self-starvers,  self-stunters  here  at 
Cusheen,  fantastic  fakirs  of  a  cramping  superstition; 
June  as  the  June  of  those  moments  might  look  when 
first  she  heard  what  he  was,  her  neck  lifting  up,  more 
columnar,  more  white,  its  warm  curves  straightening 
and  chilled ;  her  eyes  thrown  on  guard  and  looking  out 
at  him  over  lids  that  had  turned  into  estranging  fences. 

Moated  and  walled,  she  would  gaze  out  and  down. 
She  loved  him,  but  what  help  was  that?  Probably 
worse  than  none;  love  would  only  challenge  her  pride 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  235 

to  crush  it ;  he  saw  her  fastidious,  disdainful,  pagan 
really,  like  some  one  whim-driven  by  chivalric  honor, 
romantic  unreason,  inhaled  irrevocably;  she  would 
not  wince  while  she  paid  any  horrible  tax  on  human 
affection  and  happiness ;  she  would  glory ;  the  knight's 
soul  in  her  would  exult  in  its  chance  of  peril  and  pain. 
Why,  it  was  for  that  he  loved  her;  she  would  not  be 
June  without  her  ardent  yieldings  to  unenforceable 
rule  and  her  flushed,  vibrant  staunchness;  like  a  flame 
or  a  lance  it  burned  and  pierced  up  at — nothing,  per- 
haps; empty  air,  or  air  turbid  with  old  myths,  fables 
of  dead  men  that  took  life  again  and  of  unnatural 
childbirth — horrible  dregs  of  mycologist's  stuff,  like 
Dionysus  and  Pan ;  worse,  because  people  soiled  kind- 
ness and  courage  and  all  the  good  things  by  trying  to 
make  them  "  rest  on  "  those  vulgar  credulities. 

Reason  with  her?  It  was  hopeless.  Had  June's 
faith  come  of  reason,  reason  might  pierce  to  it.  Rea- 
son !  Why,  she  stood  fenced  with  distrust  of  the  brain, 
the  tool  used  in  fashioning  meanness;  if  she  saw  evi- 
dence coming  her  doors  would  clang  to ;  she  would  not 
even  look  while  proof,  the  mountebank,  contorted  it- 
self outside  in  the  mud.  If  all  the  world  came  up  to 
show  that  her  creed  was  a  thing  bygone  and  outworn, 
her  mettle  would  only  be  steeled  to  stand  by  it  in 
troubled  days.  That  was  June  too — to  be  like  that; 
had  he  not  loved  her  for  being  like  that?  He  had 
thought,  what  mattered  the  object  of  generous  pas- 
sion?— the  passion  itself  was  the  thing;  who  would 
not  know  how  to  choose  between  a  cold  world  always 
right  and  a  blind  one  on  fire  with   foolish  loyalties? 


236  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

Why,  he  loved  her  the  more  even  now  as  he  thought, 
oh,  she  will  carry  it  through.  Proof  of  confusion 
would  make  her  faith  only  the  more  imperturbable;  it 
would  be  stronger  for  its  cobweb  flimsiness;  any  bul- 
lets the  mind  could  devise  would  glance  off  those 
feathers  and  spend  themselves  uselessly  on  that  light 
sand. 

His  body  was  hot ;  he  must  have  walked  slowly,  or 
stopped  dead,  for  some  longer  time  than  he  knew, 
when  he  was  hit;  he  had  some  little  "chill,"  as  they 
call  a  shiversome  glow  that  burns  for  relief  in  more 
and  more  heat.  He  drew  up  his  legs,  drew  the  clothes 
over  his  head;  the  body's  fire  began  to  burn  like  red 
embers  blown  white,  and  the  mind  caught  heat  from  it ; 
whatever  thought  came  was  lit,  at  each  return,  with  a 
fiercer  incandescence  of  clarity.  He  entered,  he 
thought  he  was  entering,  into  June's  steadfast  horror 
of  him  as  he  was;  he  heard  it  like  music;  it  had  the 
mounting,  passionate  urgency  of  some  great  strain 
drawn  out  on  violins,  one  long,  importunate  scaling  of 
illimitable  height ;  he  saw  it  a  preternatural  spire  that 
never  ceased  to  reach  up  further  at  the  retreating  sky. 

What  to  do,  then?  He  did  not  even  try,  yet,  to 
resolve.  All  that  he  saw  was  many  impossibles.  He 
could  not  write  to  June  and  not  tell  her.  He  could 
bate  nothing,  to  her,  of  the  love  and  honor  that  he  had 
renewed  here  for  his  father.  He  could  not  relinquish 
her — play  the  kind  brute  and  tell  her  some  stage  lie — 
that  he  did  not  love  her  really;  that  would  be  loath- 
some; it  reeked  of  pink  sentiment,  stuff  for  half-made 
women  to  maunder  over  in  books.    And  it  must  fail, 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  237 

lies  were  so  feeble;  think  of  them  both  alive  after  the 
clap-trap  of  self-immolation  was  done;  the  world 
would  not  hold  them  both;  from  the  ends  of  opposite 
winds  their  souls  would  beckon  and  rush  together. 
Why,  what  was  there  to  keep  them  apart?  They  were 
all  but  touching  now,  her  desire  and  his  reaching  out 
to  each  other  like  visible  breaths  that  pierce  a  frosty 
air;  between  them  was  nothing  impenetrable,  even  by 
loveless  stars.  Rival  impossibilities  everywhere,  and  a 
choice  of  dead  walls.  Only  this  much  he  settled,  in 
his  pedestrian  way;  he  must  walk  right  up  to  those 
walls  and  feel  them  all  over  with  his  hands. 

Could  he  say  that  he  was  wretched  ?  He  asked  him- 
self that.  Self-pity,  the  sneak,  had  come  whining 
round  him,  eyeing  him  for  a  weak  place,  trying  hard 
to  corrupt  happy  memories  into  sorry  plaintive  ones, 
whispering  maudlin  questions — had  he  not  been,  when 
a  boy,  a  pitiful  figure  with  his  great  projects  lamely 
framed  in  solitude,  and  their  frustrations  stolidly 
borne  in  it?  Had  it  not  all  come  again,  plan  and 
frustration  ?  Had  he  not  been  inoffensive  ?  And  now 
this  foul  beast  of  an  unspent  force  had  broken  out  of 
its  limbo  and  hit  him.  "  Say,  '  Oh,  my  God,  why  am  I 
forsaken?'  just  to  yourself,  here  in  the  dark,"  the 
whimpering  tempter  prompted.  It  made  his  mind 
shudder  to  see  how  near  to  one's  feet  could  be  brought 
the  top  of  that  greased  slope  down  into  pits  of  slime. 
So  he  asked  what  he  really  felt.  Misery?  Nothing 
like  any  misery  ever  ascribed,  in  any  book  that  he 
knew,  to  an  ill-starred  lover.  Had  no  writer  ever 
known  what  it  was  ? — or  was  he  unlike  natural  people  ? 


238  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

For — he  could  not  blink  it — he  had  an  exultation  even 
now;  some  part  of  him  had  wings  and  rose  from  this 
new  earth  of  vast  pains  and  unbelievable  crushings  of 
hope,  and  gloried,  against  all  reason,  in  seeing  its 
vastness  and  strangeness  outspread.  It  was  anguish, 
but  vision  too;  it  opened  the  burning  heart  of  life. 
And  it  was  adventure,  like  all  shipwrecks;  it  roused; 
it  gave  things  to  do,  or  attempt ;  and  he  was  alive ;  the 
miraculous  license  to  move,  to  watch,  to  do  this  and 
not  that,  was  still  his;  even  to-night  the  next  breath 
always  came,  the  ache  of  the  instant  before  was  over, 
and  some  infinitesimal  cell  in  his  brain  the  stronger 
to  bear  the  next  if  he  had  borne  the  last  with  a  will. 
He  had  sweated  the  chill  away  now  and  lay  at  length, 
tired  and  cool,  hearing  the  endless,  desolate  splash 
of  the  waves  on  the  rocks  below,  where  the  priest  had 
turned  human. 


CHAPTER  XX 

"When  we  find  an  element  in  different  contexts,  it  acquires 
new  meanings  for  itself,  and  it  gives  new  meanings  to  the  ele- 
ments in  these  contexts.  The  element  remains  in  a  sense  the 
same,  but  it  is  also  continually  changing  with  every  new  con- 
nection into  which  it  is  brought.  The  progress  of  knowledge 
may  therefore  be  represented  as  the  pursuing  of  identities  through 
ever-increasing  differences."  R-  L-  Nettleship. 

FOR  two  more  days  Aubrey  worked  on  at  Cusheen; 
it  helped  him;  at  least  it  put  off,  illusively;  work 
that  is  hard  and  worth  doing  can  make  the  doer  feel 
as  if  surely  the  rest  of  the  world  must  be  coming  to 
rights.  On  the  third  day,  an  hour  before  Aubrey  left, 
the  priest  received  a  telegram.  They  were  at  lunch : 
Power  passed  it  across.  "  It's  to  you,"  he  said,  "  that 
it  ought  to  have  been.  I  amn't  the  one  that's  drawn 
water  out  of  the  rock." 

It  seemed  that  people  had  read  in  the  Northerner 
Aubrey's  first  screed  from  Cusheen  and  were  sending 
money  in  haste,  and  plenty  of  it — "  More  than 
enough,"  Power  said;  "  it's  a  grand  thing  for  any  man 
to  be  able  to  write  the  way  you  could  make  them  do 
that,  and  they  English." 

Aubrey  looked  at  him,  trying  to  guess  what  he 
meant.  "  I  suppose,"  he  thought,  "  it  is  *  Damn  them 
both,  father  and  son.  Can't  we  ever  be  quit  of  their 
cursed  help?'  or  '  I  won't  be  rough  on  him;  I'll  send 
the  money  back  quietly  after  he's  gone.' 

239 


240  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

He  told  Power  he  wanted  some  help :  he  was  going 
to  Dublin;  he  had  to  go  into  some  things — family 
things,  of  his  own. 

Alarm  sprang  up  in  the  priest's  face. 

'  Oh,   I'll  do  it  skulkingly,"  Aubrey  assured  him. 

"  It's  only  this,"  Power  said  humbly,  "  your  aunt 
that's  a  nun  at  Rathfarnham  is  delicate.  Any  shock 
now — " 

'  I'll  have  a  false  name,  if  you  wish.  But  I  must 
find  out.  They  were  my  father  and  mother.  Oh, 
yes,  I  know,  I  know — "  Aubrey  waved  away  whole 
cloud-armies  of  deprecatory  fears  and  demurs  half- 
discerned  in  the  looks  of  the  priest.  "  But  I  must 
see  where  they  lived.  I  must  see  people  who  knew 
them  and  knew  their  fathers  and  mothers — knew 
everything.  There  must  be  people  like  that.  They 
both  died  before  they  were  old.  You  can  help  me  to 
that?" 

''  I'll  do  what  I  can.  For  God's  sake,  be  careful. 
It's  not  like  the  great  world — this  little  country.  It's 
just  the  one  village,  and  everything's  known  about 
every  one  in  it.  The  wonder  is  it  was  only  the  Arch- 
bishop's chaplain  that  first  had  a  notion  of  who  in  the 
world  you  were." 

1  I'll  take  any  precaution  you  want.  I'll  be  Mike 
from  Australia,  a  cousin's  fifth  cousin,  burning  to 
work  out  a  pedigree.     May  I  take  the  addresses  ?  ': 

When  shy  men  begin  to  be  brazenly  dogged,  then 
obstacles,  if  they  are  versed  as  priests  are  in  the  ways 
of  our  froward  hearts,  are  apt  to  take  themselves  out 
of  the  way.     Power  gave  Aubrey  addresses.     Some 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  241 

were  of  his  maternal  kinsmen,  O'Gormans  and 
Kennedys,  cousins  of  whom  he  had  not  before  heard 
so  much  as  the  names. 

Power  annotated  each  name  as  it  came:  "a  big 
stockbroker  in  Dame  Street ;"  or  "  not  a  thing  in  the 
world  will  he  do  but  polo-playing  from  one  year's  end 
to  the  next;"  or  "the  greatest  whisky-drinker  in 
Leinster,  God  help  him,  and  he  with  a  talent  for  bank- 
ing if  he  could  be  steady."  They  seemed  a  poor  lot, 
full  of  money  and  indistinction.  There  were  priests, 
too,  on  Power's  list;  these  were  not  of  the  family. 
Aubrey  stiffened,  perhaps,  at  the  first  of  their  names. 
Power  winced.  "  You'll  not  hear  a  word,"  he  said, 
"  that'd  hurt  you." 

"You're  telling  them  nothing?" 

The  priest  held  out  to  Aubrey  the  circular  letter  of 
introduction  that  he  had  been  writing  to  these  divines. 
Aubrey  waived  the  perusal,  but  looked  at  Power  sur- 
prisedly.  So  the  elfin  cordon  was  broken  a  little  at 
last;  the  human  child  decoyed  into  the  wood  had  even 
made  friends  with  one  of  its  peering  gnomes  till  it 
would  keep  a  small  secret  of  his  from  the  others.  And 
all,  he  fancied,  because  he  had  once  had  his  wits  about 
him  and  knew  how  to  swim.  Curse  all  the  caprice  of 
these  mad  assessments  of  people's  conduct;  the  cards 
that  "  made  "  among  these  devotees  were  as  strange  as 
the  cards  that  did  not  make.  Still,  this  time  unreason 
had  got  him  a  thing  he  wanted;  let  that  make  its  peace; 
thanks  to  it,  he  would  go  on  his  quest  as  an  unknown 
crank  delving  at  family  history  harmlessly;  people 
would  humor  him. 


242  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

Power  was  pressing  his  last  hospitality — cham- 
pagne, of  all  things;  a  bottle  was  brought  in,  open, 
with  word  that  the  car  stood  at  the  door.  Aubrey  was 
glad  of  the  wine.  There  must,  anyhow,  have  been 
discord  between  their  dun  thoughts  and  their  acted 
genialities  of  speeding  host  and  of  guest  sorry  to  go. 
But  that  they  should  pledge  each  other,  at  parting,  in 
that  jocund  heart's  blood  of  unreserve — this  lifted  the 
scene  into  barbaric  grotesque;  so  Aubrey  felt,  and  was 
piqued  to  act  the  fantasy  out  in  its  own  wild  key;  it 
was  easier  so. 

He  took  his  last  look  at  Cusheen  as  the  outside  car 
went  over  the  shoulder  of  the  high  moor.  A  dull 
afternoon  was  closing  in  early;  the  place  looked 
effaced;  all  he  could  make  out,  for  sure,  was  the  petu- 
lant white  hem  of  foam  fretting  between  the  lead  of 
the  sea  and  the  lead  of  the  land.  He  looked  till  it  went 
out  of  sight,  and  then  sat  very  still  on  his  side  seat, 
back  to  back  with  the  driver,  and  stared  straight  be- 
fore him  with  eyes  nearly  closed,  seeking  the  half- 
trance  that  may  come  of  a  dazed,  bleared  intentness  of 
sense,  not  on  this  thing  or  that,  but  on  palpableness, 
the  whole  range  of  it.  Soon  it  came;  there  ceased  to 
be  here  a  rock,  there  a  cloud,  there  a  wind-vexed 
stump  of  a  tree;  there  were  not  separate  things  any 
longer,  only  a  rush  and  a  passing;  not  drifting  objects, 
but  drift,  motion  set  free  to  be  a  self  of  its  own,  not 
a  mere  state  of  selves  other  than  it.  And  he  was  se- 
cure and  snug;  he  was  no  object  now,  either;  not  a 
person;  only  a  sense,  a  perception,  released  from  the 
service  of  a  possessor;  it  had  no  past  to  mind  and  no 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  243 

future;  all  cables  were  cut  and  it  floated  off,  a  tissue 
of  disinterested  sentience;  it  and  that  disengaged  soul 
of  motion  were  all  that  was  left  of  all  that  there  ever 
had  been;  and  then  they  too  began  to  lose  their  differ- 
entness  from  each  other:  which  was  it  that  felt  and 
which  that  was  felt?  Foolish  question! — so  he  mused 
in  his  trance;  why,  all  those  old  childish  illusions  of 
subject  and  object  were  gone;  act  and  consequence, 
cause  and  effect,  one's  self  of  to-day  and  the  self  it 
builds  for  to-morrow,  yes  and  to-day  and  to-morrow 
themselves,  and  oneself  and  that  which  had  seemed  to 
be  outside  oneself — all  the  illusive  haunting  distinc- 
tions that  used  to  be  matters  of  course  were  dried  up 
like  early  mists;  nothing  was  left  but  clear  conscious- 
ness poised  in  a  void;  unhampered,  unmoved,  unre- 
lated, a  consciousness  only  of  being  penetratingly  con- 
scious. A  god  might  be  like  that  for  ever,  it  has  been 
thought.  Aubrey  sat  like  a  god  of  that  kind  for  he 
knew  not  how  long;  an  hour,  perhaps,  or  a  second; 
time  does  not  count  in  those  states. 

Suddenly  his  divinity  ended.  Some  solid  with- 
drew from  behind  his  back:  he  turned  in  time  to  see 
the  driver  alight,  a  loose  heap,  on  the  road ;  he  seemed 
to  have  fainted  and  rolled  off  the  car.  Luckily  he 
had  not  taken  the  reins  with  him.  Aubrey  pulled  up 
the  scandalized  horse,  which  was  for  bolting,  drove 
back  to  the  spot  and  found  the  man  conscious  now, 
wriggling  and  groaning  and  soon  well  enough  to  feel 
for  the  bump  he  had  on  his  head  and  to  rub  it  thought- 
fully, sitting  squat  in  the  mud.  Nothing  but  hunger 
ailed  him;  he  called  the  inopportune  faint  a  "  quare- 


244  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

ness,"  confessed  he  had  had  it  before,  and  sought  to 
pass  it  off  as  an  innocent  fad  of  the  body's.  Aubrey 
came  the  priest  over  him,  dourly  tickled  to  find  how 
easy  it  came — bullied  and  tricked  the  truth  out  of 
him,  then  drove  the  car  into  Banturk,  with  one  hand 
on  this  ragged  genius  of  famine,  to  keep  it  in 
place. 

They  ate  the  best  meal  to  be  had  at  the  public- 
house  near  the  station.  The  landlord  had  wine;  it 
seemed  the  thing  to  make  the  food  stay  on  a  starved 
stomach.  When  they  had  eaten  they  sat  half  an  hour 
together  to  finish  the  bottle  and  smoke  and  await 
Aubrey's  train.  The  man  expanded,  was  almost  a 
wit;  he  gave  his  history  genially,  seeing  it  with  the 
eye  of  tolerant  humor,  back  to  his  wild  youth  in  the 
days  of  th'  ould  priest  before  Father  Power,  "him 
that's  in  tormint,  plase  God." 

Aubrey  made  no  return  of  autobiography.  But 
he  encouraged  the  willing  witness;  he  kept  up  a  grin 
and  put  leading  questions  and  drew  replies  that  could 
make  him  wince,  though  he  was  toughening.  It  was 
good  practice,  he  thought,  for  what  he  would  have  to 
do  now.  Rather  a  dirty  trick,  though,  when  one  came 
to  play  it.  It  was  too  easy;  this  driver  would  rise 
to  any  fly  you  could  cast;  he  would  say,  with  a  happy 
sense  of  hitting  the  mark,  the  last  things  that  in  his 
good  nature  he  would  have  said  had  Aubrey  been 
frank.  Aubrey  felt  like  a  sneak,  and  a  bruised  one, 
afterwards,  as  he  sat  in  the  train.  But  he  would  go 
through  with  this;  he  did  not  have  even  to  will  it  now; 
it  was  the  one  road  to  be  gone;  the  depth  of  the  mud,  or 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  245 

the  hits  he  might  take  on  the  shins,  were  things  that 
he  might  wish  away,  but  as  to  the  route,  there  was 
no  other. 

He  carried  the  quest  right  through.  When  once 
he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  soiled  hands,  the  rest  was 
as  easy  as  pumping  that  driver.  His  mother's  broth- 
ers and  sisters  and  her  own  mother  and  father  were 
soon  almost  visible  to  him,  immensely  far  off  and  im- 
mensely clear.  He  saw  their  life  as  geologists  see  the 
old  tropical  Thames  with  the  hippopotami  half  sunk 
in  hot  mud  at  noon,  their  beatified  backs  gently  surg- 
ing and  sinking.  James  O'Gorman,  his  grandfather, 
loomed  out  like  a  veritable  monster  of  the  prime.  An 
old  priest  at  Merrion  had  known  him.  "  A  thoroughly 
good  practical  Catholic;  never  missed  Mass  and  would 
walk  all  round  Dublin  after  it,  seeing  was  there  a 
ground  rent  for  sale  at  a  price  a  person  could  look  at." 
A  gray  chapel-keeper  near  Drogheda  had  kept  James's 
books  when  James  set  up  in  youth  as  a  wine  merchant. 
"God  help  us  all,"  he  said,  "when  a  pipe  of  sherry 
was  bottled  and  there  was  not  in  it  the  number  of 
bottles  he'd  hoped  for."  "Holidays,  is  it?  He 
neither  gave  them  nor  took  them."  "  He  hadn't  a 
prejudice  in  him.  '  So  long  as  a  Protestant  pays,' 
he'd  say,  '  let  God  do  the  rest  to  him.'  Pieced  into 
life  in  Aubrey's  mind  by  a  score  of  such  touches,  the 
old  O'Gorman  got  on  his  feet,  exciting,  redoubtable, 
grisly,  an  Irishman  of  the  breed  that  England  has 
raised  for  herself  as  the  Christian  has  bred  for  himself 
the  stinged  Jew.  Aubrey  could  see  him,  acquisitive, 
obstinate,  all  his  pride  stowed  away  in  his  bunkers 


246  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

as  coal  for  his  engines;  could  even  fancy  minutely 
how  his  flesh  crawled,  in  secret,  when  some  English- 
man, driving  a  bargain,  would  lug  in  his  "  plain  sense 
of  duty  "  every  third  minute,  the  horse  smelling  the 
camel  and  loathing  it,  only  not  to  the  marring  of  in- 
stant business. 

Then  there  was  word  to  be  had  of  how  this  dragon 
had  wived — "  a  grand  thing  it  was  for  the  two  of 
them,  he  with  the  money  he'd  made  and  she  with  a 
fortune  the  fellow  of  it,  that  her  father  had  made  with 
the  great  contriving  he  had  with  shares  when  the  first 
railways  were  made,  and  she  with  a  turn  for  saving, 
the  equal  of  his.  James's  whole  family  couldn't  bear 
her  stepping  in — he'd  done  everything  for  them  till 
then — and  you  may  engage  she  returned  it  in  the  way 
she  got  shut  of  them  cliver  and  clane,  in  a  short  time, 
and  her  own  people  too,  that  had  nothing  to  do  but 
have  her  tormented,  asking  for  money,  till  she  put  a 
stop  to  it.  The  end  of  it  was  they  were  left  in  a 
great  house  in  Merrion  Square  that  they  had,  alone 
with  the  children." 

"They  had  children?'  Aubrey  dishonestly  asked 
the  old  clerk. 

"  They  had.  Three  girls  that  are  living,  may  be, 
to  this  day,  and  two  boys  that  were  one  as  wild  as  the 
other,  God  rest  them.  Dempsey's  place  was  the  death 
of  them." 

Dempsey's :  Aubrey's  mind  made  a  note  which  led 
him  to  penetrate,  the  next  night,  to  a  small  cube  of 
strong  light  and  convivial  stuffiness  tucked  away  at  the 
far  end  of  a  burrow-like  entry.    Bloods  of  the  present 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  247 

age  were  sitting  pleased  on  the  ends  of  casks  and  a 
landlord  of  forty  years  old  was  not  concealing  his  own 
belief  that  they  were  grand  fellows;  Dempsey  to 
Dempsey  succeeds,  and  blood  to  blood. 

"  It  was  the  one  bit  of  pleasure  that  came  to  them," 
so  the  old  clerk  had  gone  on.  "  Never  a  card  would 
the  mother  have  in  the  house,  and  scarcely  a  book, 
nor  give  them  a  horse  to  ride,  and  they  great  at  it; 
'  What  could  they  do,'  she'd  say  whenever  they  asked, 
'  but  break  its  knees  on  the  road  or  destroy  it  out 
hunting?'  Indeed,  the  hunting  was  what  they  both 
wished  to  be  at.  And  never  a  latch-key  between  them, 
down  to  the  day  the  last  died.  I  lived  in  the  house 
at  the  time,  and  she'd  lie  awake  every  night  of  the 
week  to  call  out  to  each  of  the  boys,  and  he  crawlin' 
upstairs  on  all  fours,  '  Did  you  bolt  the  front  door 
when  you'd  entered  ?  '  to  show  she  was  seeing  the  kind 
of  work  they  were  about. 

"  When  they  were  gone  there  was  only  the  husband 
in  it  for  her  to  torment,  besides  women.  Dear,  but  she 
was  the  hard  one;  you'd  be  entitled  to  think  her  body 
was  all  the  one  piece  with  her  nails.  Nothing  would 
do  her,  if  James  displeased  her  at  all,  but  to  take  a 
whole  pack  of  the  foreign  bonds  that  he  had,  th'  in- 
stant minute  he'd  quitted  the  house,  and  have  them 
hid  away  on  him  and  he  coming  home  in  the  evening: 
you'd  hear  him  all  through  the  darkness  of  night 
walkin'  about  like  th'  unquiet  dead  in  his  pain  and 
callin'  out,  '  Give  me  my  bonds,'  on  the  stairs  and 
landin',  in  the  deep  voice  he  had,  the  moral,  for  all  the 
world,  of  blood  cryin'  out  from  the  ground,  until  you'd 


248  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

be  frikened  to  hear,  but  herself,  that  was  a  great 
sleeper,  not  mindin'  at  all. 

"  He  died,  at  the  end,  of  a  pain  in  his  bowels,  the 
sort  they'd  cut  out  of  you  now  with  a  knife  in  the 
time  a  horse  would  be  wag-gin'  his  tail,  but  he  didn't 
over  it.  Great  work  she  had  with  him,  three  nights  or 
four,  sitting  up  in  her  clothes  by  the  bed  till  she'd  have 
him  persuaded  to  make  a  new  will  the  way  he'd  leave 
nothin'  at  all  to  the  three  girls  for  their  own,  but  wait 
till  their  mother'd  see  how  they  got  on.  Biddy  Foy, 
that  was  housekeeper  then,  and  myself  were  kept 
perishin'  out  in  the  cold  at  the  door,  to  be  witnesses, 
while  he'd  be  moanin'  and  yowlin'  within,  and  herself 
comin'  back  to  it  always,  as  soon  as  you'd  hear  for  the 
groans,  that  Kate,  who'd  just  gone  to  the  convent, 
would  not  need  a  penny  again  in  this  world,  and  as  for 
Minnie—" 

"  June's  mother — so  that  was  her  name,"  Aubrey 
silently  noted. 

"  — why,  in  the  state  she  was  in  since  the  brothers 
had  died  on  her,  she'd  be  as  apt  as  not  to  fling  it  away 
to  the  poor,  every  sixpence;  and  God  only  knew  what 
wild  work  was  the  next  thing  Nora'd  be  at — " 

Aubrey  winced  at  his  mother's  name,  though  he  had 
seen  it  coming. 

" — and  she  not  at  Mass  for  a  month  past;  and 
wasn't  it  only  a  poor  lookout  he'd  have,  where  he  was 
goin',  if  he  didn't  give  his  mind  to  it  now  and  see  that 
nothin'  desprit  was  done  with  his  money  after?  Great 
talkin'  she  had,  an'  she  not  seemin'  to  be  in  a  hurry  at 
all,  or  anxious  itself,  and  it  a  close  race,  with  the 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  249 

stren'th  to  write  goin'  out  of  his  body — I  question  will 
I  or  any  one  else  in  the  world  see  the  finish  to  equal  it. 
She  was  a  wonderful  woman;  she  bate  all,  and  he  left 
every  penny  to  her,  that  was  jinglin'  with  money 
already,  before  he  went  shriekin'  out  of  his  senses.  I 
do  assure  you,  Biddy  and  I  had  no  sooner  written  our 
names  than  we  lep'  down  the  stairs,  a  match  for  a 
couple  of  greyhounds,  holdin'  our  hands  to  our  ears." 
"  Biddy  Foy  ?  They  tell  me  she's  caretaker  now  at 
Barnbrack,  the  great  house  in  Wicklow  that  Mrs. 
O'Gorman  bought  for  herself  when  James  had  left  her 
the  richest  woman  in  Ireland.  When  she  died  it  went 
to  the  daughter  Minnie  that  married  an  Englishman 
from  Dublin  Castle;  he  was  a  Catholic  though;  the 
mother  took  good  care  of  that;  she'd  the  earth  and  the 
fullness  thereof  at  that  time  and  she  wasn't  the  woman 
to  miss  Heaven  too,  when  the  time  for  it  came." 


CHAPTER  XXI 

"  Love,  no  one  can  beat  you.  You  have  at  the  rich ;  you  can 
step  over  a  sea ;  there  you  are,  at  your  work,  in  quiet  houses  out 
in  the  country.  There  isn't  the  saint  can  say  he's  shut  of  you 
surely,  and  what  of  the  rest  of  us  all,  the  May-flies  we  are.  The 
time  you  come  in,  understanding  quits  out  of  us." 

From  the  Hedge  Schoolmaster's  Sophocles. 

NEXT  day  Aubrey  made  for  Barnbrack,  a  great, 
frigid,  classical  house;  like  an  iceberg  astray 
in  the  Gulf  Stream,  it  rose  white  and  cold,  that  mild 
day,  out  of  Wicklow's  wild  roses,  fuchsias  and  lush 
honeysuckles.  None  of  these  idlers  climbed  on  its 
actual  walls;  the  lady's  puissant  reason  had  vetoed 
that,  "  and  they  with  nothing  to  do  but  bring  earwigs 
in  at  the  window."  Biddy  Foy  reported  this  judg- 
ment to  Aubrey ;  and  so  the  house  stood  naked  as  when 
it  was  born,  and  was  moated  about,  like  the  Roc-a- 
Voir  Inn,  with  loose  stony  gravel  "  the  depth,"  as 
Mrs.  Foy  said,  "  of  the  world;  it'd  break  the  heart  of 
a  grub  to  set  foot  on  it."  She  toddled  over  it  pain- 
fully, showing  Aubrey  the  place. 

She  was  a  palpable  relic,  this  Mrs.  Foy,  a  lingering 
trace  like  a  blasted  tree,  or  a  glacier-marked  stone  in  a 
green  dale,  of  the  mightiness  of  old,  spent  forces. 
When  she  took  heart  a  little  and  let  herself  go,  in  her 
talk,  she  made  Aubrey  think  of  the  faint  resurgent 
stirrings  of  grass  after  the  roller  has  done  with  it. 
Now  and  then  she  would  seem  to  be  sure  for  some  mo- 
ments that  Mrs.  O'Gorman  was  wholly  dead,  and  that 

350 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  251 

the  souls  of  the  living  were  their  own  once  more. 
Then  would  peep  out  "  a  wish  she  had  in  her  mind, 
for  some  reason  or  other,"  to  live  in  a  house  that  was 
all  "  a  smother  of  creepers."  And  then  again,  like 
the  poor  Indian,  she  would  see  Mrs.  O'Gorman  in 
clouds  or  hear  her  in  the  wind,  and  back  would  the 
well-beaten  subject  come  to  her  duty  with  "  After  all, 
she  was  the  wonderful  woman,"  or  <:  There  was  the 
depth  in  her  sayings,"  or  (steeling  herself)  "  I  often 
wish  I  could  have  a  talk  with  her  now." 

Biddy  was  vivid,  if  spiritless.  She  had  been  printed 
upon  by  some  gleams  of  the  dreary  splendor  with 
which  the  widow  O'Gorman  had  celebrated  till  death 
her  triumphant  return  to  "  the  land."  Biddy,  showing 
the  stables,  partly  undid  a  swathed  carriage,  a 
monstrous  piece,  swung  from  the  C  springs  of  an- 
tiquity. "  Not  a  day  but  the  mistress  would  set  out 
at  two  and  be  driven  the  whole  country  round,  and  she 
very  inclined  to  be  sick  in  a  carriage.  She  hoped  she'd 
conquer  it  yet.  One  man  only  she'd  have  on  the  box, 
and  two  standing  behind  on  a  board,  and  the  nakedest 
dog  you  ever  saw  in  your  life,  a  mass  of  black  spots, 
legging  along  for  dear  life  beneath.  She'd  not  have 
dog  or  cat  near  her,  except  in  that  situation  only. 
1  They'd  not  do  a  thing  in  the  house  but  eat,'  she'd  say, 
'  and  they  won't  do  that  properly.'  She  was  a  won- 
derful woman  at  knowing  the  time  to  spend  and  the 
time  to  let  it  alone.  Not  a  servant  would  stay  in  the 
house.  '  They'd  like  to  have  more  scope,'  she  said  to 
me  once,  '  in  batter  puddings,  but  where  would  it  end 
if  I  once  began  spoiling  them? '     Yet  she'd  do  things 


252  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

in  style  when  the  time  for  it  came.  People  in  Dublin 
itself  will  talk  to  this  day  of  the  way  she  buried  the 
master.  She'd  speak  of  it  often  herself.  '  Would  any 
one  ever  believe,'  she'd  say  to  Miss  Minnie,  '  the 
frightful  price  the  man  charged  for  the  coffin?  ' 

"Miss  Nora?  The  new  paint  wasn't  dry  on  the 
house  before  she  was  off  and  away  to  England,  or  God 
knows  where  in  the  wide  world,  to  live  in  a  poor 
shabby  way,  as  if  she  had  no  respect  for  herself. 
Dear,  but  the  mother  hated  her  for  it.  She'd  burn 
every  letter,  fresh  from  the  post,  and  it  not  opened, 
and  there  was  the  row,  I  can  tell  you,  the  day  Miss 
Minnie  let  on,  coming  back  from  confession,  the  way 
she  had  written,  ay,  and  several  times,  to  her  sister. 
Terrible  fond  of  each  other  the  two  girls  were,  and  I 
don't  rightly  know  that  Miss  Minnie  ever  had  her 
health  after  the  writing  was  stopped  on  her.  She'd 
be  in  there  in  the  drawing-room  saying  she  only  wished 
to  do  this  or  do  that  and  be  minding  the  poor  or 
going  off  into  the  convent  after  Miss  Kate,  till  her 
mother'd  be  angry  and  say,  '  Why,  you  fool,'  she'd 
say,  '  why  don't  you  go  and  get  married?'  Married 
she  was,  in  a  twelvemonth.  What  with  the  two  broth- 
ers dead,  and  one  sister  with  vows  of  poverty  taken, 
and  one  quit  out  of  the  place  wholly,  the  girl  wras  the 
best  match  in  Ireland.  Not  a  tittle  of  love  had  she  in 
her,  for  all  the  signs  I  could  see;  she'd  as  lief  marry 
this  one  as  that,  and  none  at  all  better  than  any.  The 
mother  did  it;  she'd  never  let  her  alone  till  she  had 
her  engaged,  and  then,  when  the  horrors  of  bein'  mar- 
ried were  near,  Miss  Minnie  would  say  why  shouldn't 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  2.5.3 

she  suffer  as  well  as  another,  and  anyway  hadn't  she 
promised?  She  had  pride  too,  in  a  way  of  her  own, 
though  she  never  could  keep  a  stiff  lip  to  the  mother. 
Too  meek  to  please  me.  altogether. 

"  Miss  Nora? — that  was  the  wild  Irish  girl,  as  they 
say.  Not  a  thing  came  into  her  head  but  she'd  say  it. 
The  night  Patrick,  her  last  brother,  had  died,  Father 
Browne  of  Cusheen  reached  the  house  half  an  hour 
too  late,  and  what  should  she  do  but  say  to  his  face 
that  she  wouldn't  wonder  if  God  weren't  hard  on  the 
boy  at  all,  and  he  just  after  dying  without  the  rites  of 
the  Church?  You'd  be  astonished  to  see  the  way  the 
priest  took  it.  '  I'm  thinking  that  too,'  said  he,  '  a 
good  while  back.'  She  was  afraid  when  she'd  spoken, 
but,  when  he  said  that,  I  give  you  my  word  she  looked 
as  if  she  were  more  frikened  still  because  he  had  not 
up  and  told  her  that  it  was  no  thing  to  be  saying. 
I'll  engage  she  was  thinking  what  work  he  might  have 
with  the  bishop,  and  not  of  herself  at  all.  I  was  a 
favorite  of  hers,  but  she  was  the  worry.  You  couldn't 
depend  on  her  not  to  come  home  with  her  watch  given 
away  to  a  tramper  that  told  her  some  tale  on  the  road, 
the  moral  of  those  wild  Fijians  there  in  the  paper, 
that  can't  elevate  their  position  because  no  one  comes 
and  asks  for  a  thing  but  they  give  it.  The  mistress 
never  forgave  the  way  she  got  on.  '  Step  in  here  at 
once,'  she  called  to  me  over  the  stairs  the  day  after 
Miss  Nora  quit  out  of  it.  '  Sign  that,'  said  she,  '  and 
mind  what  you're  about  with  the  ink  on  the  furniture.' 
It  was  a  new  will,  you  may  depend,  and  she  in  a  des- 
perate hurry  to  see  to  it  lest  she  should  die  in  the  night 


254  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

and  the  daughter  not  be  deprived  of  her  fortune.  Miss 
Nora  had  come  to  me  late  on  the  evening  before,  and 
she  not  able  to  sleep  with  the  way  her  thoughts  had 
her  tormented,  what  with  her  being  wild,  by  that  time, 
to  be  out  of  the  place,  and  not  wanting  to  go  from  the 
sister.  '  Me  heart's  broke,  Biddy,'  she'd  say  the  wan 
moment — she'd  talk  like  the  country  people  to  me — 
and  the  next  she'd  be  singing  low  to  herself,  '  My 
heart  in  the  far  world  is  yearning  to  roam  ' — it  came 
out  of  a  song  she'd  heard  Father  Browne  singing  that 
day.  He  was  great  at  the  singing.  Midsummer  eve 
it  was,  and  a  strong  light  still  in  the  sky  and  it  after 
ten  at  night,  the  way  I  could  see  the  gleams  come  in 
her  eyes  and  go  out  again." 

'  Was  it  very  like  water  under  a  bridge  at  night," 
Aubrey  asked,  "  with  a  lamp  on  it?  " 

'  Maybe  it  was,  and  the  cheeks  of  her  flushing 
darker,  and  going  light  the  next  minute.  She  was  the 
beautiful  woman  for  color.  You'd  see  a  little  pink 
cloud,  like  the  light  the  sun  'ud  send  through  the  leaf 
of  a  rose,  and  it  crossing  the  width  of  her  face  like 
the  little  shadows  of  clouds  that  do  be  running  over 
the  side  of  a  hill,  or  the  patches  flytin'  about  on  a  field 
of  corn  with  the  little  winds  blowing." 

"  Yes,  yes." 

"  You've  seen  her?  " 

"  I've  seen  some  one  like  it." 

"  There  wasn't  her  aquil  ever,  if  you  could  have 
seen  her  that  night,  with  her  voice  like  a  warm  creature 
nestled  in  her  and  she  in  a  heave  with  the  big  wishes 
she  had,  and  that  gleam  in  her  eyes  in  the  dark  till 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  255 

ycu'd  think  of  the  loveliest  fearful  wild  thing  in  a 
forest  until  you'd  be  terrified.  That  was  the  room,  up 
above  there." 

The  two  were  fording  the  loose  depths  of  gravel 
back  to  the  door,  from  a  paintless  and  moldering 
bench  whence  they  had  viewed  the  garden  front  of  the 
house.  Death  could  not  be  stiller  than  this  place  where 
passionate  hearts  had  hurt  with  very  fullness  of  life 
in  the  June  night's  passionate  dusk.  It  was  afternoon 
now,  humid  and  motionless;  sleep  began  to  invade 
Mrs.  Foy,  sleep  and  the  fear  that  she  might  have  said 
more  than  enough  about  her  old  likings  and  wonder- 
ments. What  could  the  gentleman  care  about  them? 
So  she  became  elegant  and  impersonal,  took  up  a  news- 
paper lying  about  in  the  hall  and,  vaguely  indicating 
a  page,  began  to  make  talk  of  wider  interest.  '  I  see 
from  the  paper  that  Belgium's  a  wonderfully  indus- 
trious country.  The  women  that's  in  it  are  all  bent 
double  with  working.  The  men  are  idle — you'd  see 
them  sittin'  out  at  the  doors — I  don't  know  whether 
it's  that  lager  beer  that  they're  at,  or  what?' 

"  Did  you  hear  from  Miss  Nora  again?  ' 

"  I  did  not,  and  she  a  great  warrant  to  write,  or 
talk  itself,  about  anything  ever  she  saw  till  she'd  have 
you  excited  with  wishing  you'd  seen  it,  the  way  I'd 
liefer  read  one  of  her  letters  than  ten  of  Miss  Kate's, 
that  were  all  desiring  your  prayers  and  wondering 
could  nothing  at  all  be  done  for  Rev.  Mother  Su- 
perior's toothache,  and  that  only." 

He  lingered,  making  up  questions.  None  of  them 
mattered  much;  at  least,  the  direct  answers  did  not — 


256  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

only  the  gleams  that  would  come  now  and  then  from 
the  glow  of  his  mother's  youth,  retracted  fitfully  from 
this  old  mirroring  mind.  They  were  enough  to  see 
everything  by.  Imagination  can  piece  out  reality  fast 
when  it  works  with  passion,  burning  along  each  line 
of  conjecture  and  reaching  mightily  out  to  span  breaks 
of  connection.  Feeling  back  all  the  way  through  his 
own  youth  to  childhood,  he  read  at  every  turn  some 
inscription  illegible  then,  not  even  a  matter  of  cu- 
riosity; now  explicit,  voluminous.  Why,  his  father 
and  mother  had  always  been  talking  about  and  around 
it  all,  every  day  till  one  of  them  died,  in  a  code  of 
luminous  silences,  flashingly  significant  now,  like  let- 
ters cut  out  of  a  stencil  plate,  where  blankness  is  legi- 
ble. Once  he  had  seen  a  man  at  a  fair  stand  flat 
against  a  white  board  and  another  man  throw  two- 
score  of  black  knives  that  stuck  in  the  board  all  round 
him,  a  nail's  breadth  from  hurting  him,  so  that  at  last, 
when  the  man  stood  away  from  the  board,  his  figure 
was  drawn  upon  it,  as  unstabbed  space.  It  was  like 
that.  All  his  life  the  knives  had  been  flying  and  now 
the  figures  stood  out;  the  void  was  graphic. 

Where  he  did  not  know  how  this  or  that  passage 
had  gone,  he  knew  how  it  must  have.  He  knew  like 
the  back  of  his  hand  the  old  ruffian  O'Gorman  and 
that  fell,  notable  dragoness,  with  her  stomachic  crav- 
ing for  land  and  a  hulking  barouche  and  a  Danish 
dog  to  shank  along  after  it;  what  a  union  of  reason, 
and  what  hell  for  its  children !  He  knew  all  about  the 
dismal  large  house  in  a  sunken  capital — all  the  un- 
humanized,  humorless  social  rising,  the  hatred  of  play 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  257 

and  mirth  as  unacquisitive  things  and  doors  into  vice; 
probably  there  had  been  frozen  dinner-parties,  where 
every  one  kept  his  facial  muscles  jammed  fast  in  a 
selected  position,  implied  his  own  proper  share  of  im- 
portance in  everything  that  he  said,  and  looked  out  for 
faults  in  the  entertainment,  to  talk  about  afterwards 
with  his  wife.  Poor  devils  of  boys,  his  uncles,  grow- 
ing up  tortured  with  hunger  for  all  the  unpaid  dues 
of  their  youth.  Only  the  other  day  he  had  been  young, 
and  the  year's  youth  and  the  day's  so  working  on  his 
that  it  seemed  almost  vile  to  be  reading  indoors;  it 
was  self-mutilation;  the  sensuous  blood  had  run  bub- 
bling, crying  out  to  be  slaked  in  ecstasies  of  union  with 
the  June  meadows  and  the  sunned  stream.  He  had 
had  these,  and  they  had  had  Dempsey's  and  that  mo- 
ment of  cheap  magic,  about  the  third  glass,  when  all 
the  voices  fuse  into  one  mellow  luster  of  sound,  the  hum 
of  an  easier,  more  friendly  world.  Entering  it  so,  they 
were  done  for;  they  had  been  given  no  chance;  "  through 
the  pit  infernal,  down  to  the  grave  of  McGinn  and 
Burns,"  he  watched  them  slipping  and  tumbling. 

When  they  had  been  executed  by  phthisis  at  last, 
and  the  windows  thrown  up  in  the  house  for  the 
waxen  smell  to  escape,  all  that  were  left  became  only 
clearer;  the  father  and  mother  putting  it  harshly  to 
God  that  the  fault  was  not  theirs;  Kate  cowering  back 
to  the  nunnery  where  she  had  cowered  at  school  till  a 
few  months  before,  perceiving  now  that  outside  its 
palings  there  could  be  nothing  but  evil;  Minnie  numbly 
fumbling  away,  for  an  anodyne,  at  good  works;  and 
the  other,  the  one  that  was  all  light  and  air,  throb  and 


258  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

glow,  flaming  out  at  the  tall  young  priest  and  gasping 
to  find  that  he  had  been  changing  too.  Was  that  the 
beginning  of  their  great  love?  It  might  have  been. 
For  they  must  have  gazed  at  each  other  quite  simply 
when  he  had  spoken;  yes,  both  had  done  that — Aubrey 
knew  them;  and  there  might  have  been  a  silence  that 
swore  them  comrades  in  consciousness  of  the  great 
ship  sinking  under  them,  and  of  the  frailty  of  rafts, 
and  the  width  of  the  sea. 

Then,  of  course,  they  had  had  to  lose  themselves, 
separately,  lest  the  mud  that  flies  round  unfrocked 
priests  should  bespatter  poor  Kate  or  Minnie  or  some 
other  innocent — Minnie's  possible  children,  perhaps. 
That  must  have  been  why  they  lived  all  that  time  in 
Italy,  Switzerland,  France,  and  then  by  the  tidal 
Thames'  Babylonish  waters.  They  were  extinct  there; 
all  the  past  part  of  them  was;  they  had  cut  their  lives 
in  two  and  become  like  a  man  and  woman  born 
mature,  alone  and  relationless  as  Adam  and  Eve,  and 
set  on  remaining  so,  bent  on  keeping  clear  for  their 
young  one  the  newly-made  world  in  which  their  old 
world's  marks  would  be  rubbed  off  the  slate  and  life 
could  be  what  the  owner  made  it.  So  that  was  why 
even  he  had  never  been  told ;  he  was  to  start  fair.  As 
if  that  were  possible!  Why,  the  mere  fact  that  they 
were  in  hiding  at  Strand-on-the-Green,  and  he  not  to 
know  it,  had  swelled  and  swelled  till  it  ruled  all  their 
ways  with  each  other  at  home;  it  had  planted  crepus- 
cular woods  of  reserve  and  annealed  chilly  steels  of 
hard  self-reliance.  He  could  see  now  the  way  that  he 
had  been  made,  and  why  he  had  been  so  queerly  fur- 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  259 

tive  in  pushing  his  great  schemes  when  a  child,  and 
grotesquely  stoic  in  taking  defeats  that  need  not  have 
come;  what  roundabout  ways  he  had  taken  to  scraps 
of  common  knowledge  that  other  children,  no  doubt, 
got  for  the  asking.  He  might  be  the  same  now ;  prob- 
ably was,  for  made  is  made  and  cannot  go  back;  lie 
might  be  walking  as  far  round  now,  to  run  up  against 
a  near  dead  wall  in  the  end,  as  he  was  when  he  made 
his  idiotic  attempts  to  dance  and  learn  music;  perhaps 
he  was  standing  now  as  far  outside  the  world  of  scru- 
ples and  awes  in  which  a  young  Catholic  woman  must 
live,  as  he  had  been  outside  the  whole  universe  of 
social  lightsomeness  when  he  was  paying  dues  to  Si- 
gnor  Bellaggio.  He  must  make  surer,  must  go  to  places 
where  his  warped  mental  sight  might  be  helped — to 
churches  where  there  was  Mass,  or  where  veiled 
women  were  flitting  in  to  confess  in  chapels  out  of  the 
aisles.  He  dimly  understood  that  his  mind  had  lost  the 
unconscious  bloom  of  its  first  health;  it  had  to  think 
out  possible  aids  and  do  repairs  in  itself  and  guard 
against  maladies.  First  he  pored  over  June's  letters 
again,  forcing  himself  to  give  weight  to  whatever  he, 
being  made  as  he  was,  might  have  minded  too  little. 
"  I  prayed  for  you  to  Mary,  Mother  of  God."  He 
fixed  on  the  words;  he  strove  to  prevent  himself  from 
shirking;  he  strained  till  all  the  letter's  passion  was  in 
them,  telling  himself  all  the  time  that  he  could  not 
bend  himself  that  way  enough,  could  not  hope  ever  to 
figure,  by  any  effort,  all  the  depth  and  dream  of  June's 
abandonment  of  her  reason  and  will  to  the  mystic  rule 
of  her  faith. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

"  O   the   sacrifice  ! 
How    ceremonious,    solemn,    and    unearthly 
It  was  i'  the  offering !  " 

The   Winter's   Tale,  Act  iii.,   sc.    I. 

THE  ante-chapel  is  large  and  ill-lit  in  the  Chelsea 
Church  of  the  Holy  Name;  through  the  gap  in 
the  screen  that  walls  it  off  from  the  rest  of  the  church 
the  crowd  of  last  comers  and  born  choosers  of  lower 
seats  look  from  obscurity  into  light,  and,  if  they  are 
placed  near  the  middle,  see  the  thin  veils  of  incense 
pushing  or  dispersing  up,  a  great  way  off,  like  the 
smoke  almost  burnt  into  flame  over  a  furnace.  Au- 
brey, sitting  more  at  one  side,  could  not  see  the  altar; 
all  that  was  to  be  done  there  would  be  round  a  corner, 
for  him;  he  would  have  to  infer  its  progress  from 
what  the  people  did  who  could  see;  a  wave  of  genu- 
flection, no  doubt,  would  roll  out  at  the  right  moments 
through  the  break  in  the  screen  and  so  unbrokenly  on, 
round  its  corners.  He  had  been  in  this  place  when  a 
boy;  at  first,  in  those  days  he  had  wanted  to  find  what 
to  think  about  people's  squabblesome  creeds  and  patent 
rights  in  bliss  or  damnation;  but  soon  he  had  let  all 
that  rest;  there  were  no  ghosts,  and  dead  people  did 
not  get  up,  but  why  should  not  any  one  say  they  did, 
if  he  liked?  People  often  said  their  blood  boiled,  or 
their  tongues  were  tied;  no  doubt  it  was  only  meant 

260 


THE  MORNINGS  WAR  2G1 

in  that  way.  Christ's  life  was  another  matter — not 
to  be  thought  about  in  such  places,  but  read  and  wept 
over  in  secret  with  shamefaced  agonies  of  love  and 
admiration  for  one  who  would  be  so  hooted  if  he  lived 
now.  That  tragic  and  lovely  life  could  have  nothing 
to  do  with  the  composed  unction  of  priests  as  they 
sprinkled  the  holy  water — no  more  than  the  Psalm- 
ist's rending  cries  of  writhing  self-pity  could  have 
to  do  with  the  congregations  who  poured  out  the 
words  of  them,  looking  so  glad  of  their  good  clothes. 
It  had  all  been  semi-private  theatricals  then,  and  not 
to  be  treated  rudely  by  any  visitors;  so  he  had  blinked 
up  reverently  towards  the  aspersing  Roman  brush  and 
had  inwardly  applauded  the  Anglican  vicar  of  Coway, 
near  home,  for  that  telling  break  and  slow  recovery 
of  his  voice,  as  if  with  undisguisable  effort,  when  he 
had  just  said  a  moving  thing  in  a  sermon — that  though 
tenderness,  was  not  easy  for  him  at  all;  the  youthful 
Aubrey  had  once  heard  him  rating  the  little  soiled  rag 
of  a  girl  from  the  workhouse  who  did  the  rough  work 
at  the  parsonage. 

Music  began,  distant  and  muted  like  sounds  of  the 
street  heard  in  illness.  Music  had  never  said  things 
of  its  own  to  Aubrey — merely  made  his  thoughts 
fluent;  recollection  and  anticipation  ran  where  they 
would,  like  our  easily  triumphing  powers  in  dreams. 
Now  he  was  picturing  June,  still  a  child,  as  she  must 
have  been  on  those  old  Sundays,  nearing  already  the 
heart  of  this  mystic  marvel,  soaking  its  essences  in  till 
all  the  tissues  of  mind  and  heart  were  charged  and 
stained  with  them  unchangeably,  while  he  had  prowled 


262  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

and  peeped  from  outside  like  the  boys  round  a  tent 
where  there  may  be  a  circus.  And  all  the  time  June 
and  he  had  been  drawing  nearer  and  nearer;  that  old 
fancy  of  all  lovers  next  filled  him;  he  trembled,  as  all 
of  them  do,  to  think  how  many  miracles  of  choice  and 
of  chance  had  conspired  throughout  their  lives  along 
the  two  convergent  lines,  wavering,  broken,  uncertain, 
rushing  together  at  last.  Had  his  parents  not  settled 
in  England,  had  he  not  been  bitten  with  that  mountain 
mania,  or  not  gone  to  Oxford,  or  had  Guy  and  he  not 
met  there — .  Guy  had  attracted  him  oddly  at  Oxford 
— the  pretty  boy,  prettily  spoken,  prettily  mannered, 
amusingly,  puzzlingly  proof  against  the  young  sum- 
mer's intoxicant  loveliness.  Guy  had  disturbed  him 
then;  he  remembered  now  how  he  had  tried  to  put  to 
himself  what  it  was  about  Guy  or  his  ways  that  made 
you  want  to  hear  what  he  would  say  next  and  to  see 
what  he  would  do.  They  had  said  good-night  in  the 
resonant  Broad  as  the  clock  struck  the  quarter  before 
midnight;  Aubrey  had  leant  for  a  while  out  of  his 
window,  cooling  himself  at  the  antique  hoariness  of 
night  shed  on  an  Oxford  moonlit  and  stone-cold. 
What  had  worked  in  him,  heated  him,  even  then? 
Groping  impulses,  instincts,  a  blind  curiosity  stirring 
like  seeds  that  push  furtively  up  through  the  dark 
clay,  dim  precognitions  drawing  him  subtly  towards 
June  the  unseen,  as  two  spars  adrift  far  apart  at  even- 
ing draw  to  each  other  strangely  through  all  the  night 
and  are  locked  together  at  dawn?  Coincidence — was 
there  any  such  thing?  Or  was  it  only  that  there  were 
spaces  uncharted  as  yet,  across  which  soul  could  hail 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  263 

soul,  sending  a  ripple  running  over  some  unperceived 
sea  that  was  not  a  bar,  but  a  bond? 

Thought,  shifting  and  eddysome,  played  round  that 
fancy  awhile  and  then  drifted  on.  The  music  was 
rising  and  quickened  his  reverie.  Then  an  intoning 
yoice  droned,  with  no  care  for  what  the  words  were, 
as  if  sense  were  dross,  and  reason  no  more  than  the 
mud  on  the  earth  is  to  one  flying  over  it.  Of  course; 
they  must  seem  so  to  June,  who  was  free  of  this  air; 
all  the  things  he  could  say,  the  ways  he  could  plead, 
must  seem  ignobly  ugly  to  her,  no  better  than  some 
cretin's  stuttering  struggle  to  make  clear  his  poor 
soiled  desires.  He  was  excluded;  rightly  or  wrongly, 
what  mattered  it  which?  Perhaps  they  had  got  hold 
of  something,  these  mystics — the  ones  that  cared 
really.  Perhaps  it  was  all  a  mistake,  an  ageing  world's 
maudlin  effort  to  have  back  the  dreams  of  its  youth. 
What  did  it  matter?     He  was  excluded. 

There  came  rolling  out  through  the  door  in  the 
screen  a  chant  or  sung  collect,  the  words  of  it  poised 
aloft  on  the  tips  of  clear  treble  voices: — 

"Gratiam  tuam,  quaesumus,  Domine,  mentibus  nostris  infunde, 
Ut   qui,    angelo    nuntiante,    Christi    filii    tui    incarnationem    cog- 

novimus, 
Per   passionem   ejus   et   crucem  in   Resurrectionis   gloriam   per- 

ducamur." 

He  could  have  fallen  down  and  worshiped  the  beauty 
of  cadences  falling  like  those,  stooping  like  humbled 
queens,  or  floating  like  mists  of  high  waterfalls  down 
through  a  sunlit  air,  or  alighting  on  earth  with  a  snow- 


264  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

flake's  hesitant  tenderness.  They  were  delight,  and 
yet  hunger  came  from  hearing  them,  thought  ached 
and  craved  at  them — flowers  in  ripening  corn  were 
like  that;  they  preyed  like  lost  loves;  as  if  from  some 
house  of  barred  doors,  to  which  we  had  lost  them, 
they  looked  out  through  windows  but  never  quite  saw 
us,  their  eyes  were  so  drowsed  with  fumes  of  their 
own  beatitude.  June  was  there,  in  that  locked  house 
of  mystical  ardors  whose  speech  was  these  melodies. 
She  had  the  key;  she  could  hold  the  note  of  high  rap- 
ture; she  could  build  for  herself,  out  of  this  spilt 
wealth  of  superb  unreason;  arch-like,  it  must  lock  its 
splendors  together  in  strength  when  the  keystone  she 
had  was  put  in ;  palace-like  it  must  rise,  arch  upon 
arch  of  ordered,  articulate  ecstasy. 

Then  he  saw  her.  He  had  just  been  thinking  she 
might  be  there,  when  some  one  moved  out  of  a  seat 
far  up  the  chapel,  and  there,  in  a  space  thus  made, 
was  the  profile  that  no  other  could  ever  be  like.  It 
was  upturned  and  grave;  and  behind  it  the  light 
blazed  whitest,  throwing  up  dark,  from  the  throat  to 
the  hair,  the  line  from  which  the  puissance  and  grace  of 
all  perfect  curves  of  vases  and  daffodils,  cornice  and 
arch,  must  have  come.  She  was  watching  the  priest,  he 
felt  sure;  Aubrey's  eyes  strove  to  bore  through  the  air 
to  reach  hers;  they  seemed  to  do  it;  he  fancied  he  saw 
her  looks  change  as  she  followed  the  Mass  out  through 
its  symbolist  drama  of  abnegation  transfigured  into 
glory.  Eager  pity,  loyalty,  triumph — the  shadow  or 
light  of  each  of  these  seemed  to  fall  on  her,  cast  by 
the  invisible  celebrant  at  the  altar.     How  he  played 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  2G5 

on  her;  what  could  cope  with  that  power  to  fire  and 
thrill  and  persuade?     While  Aubrey  gazed,  the  glow 
appeared  to  whiten  and  also  recede,  with  June  in  it, 
drawing  her  back  from  the  eye  till  she  was  a  speck, 
still  with   its  outline  poignantly   fair,   but  remote   in 
quivering  flame. 
. 
He  sat  back  when   the  service  ended.     Best  wait 
there  and  let  her  go  first,  he  thought,  and  then  slip 
out  himself  and  sneak  off.     Before  he  could  know 
what  to  say  when  they  met,  he  would  have  to  digest 
all  this,  that  he  had  just  taken  in.     But  priest  and 
assistants  and  choir  had  all  to  troop  out  through  the 
ante-chapel;  so  those  who  sat  there  must  stand  up  and 
watch  the  warm  core  of  the  rite  breaking  its  shell, 
like   a   tropical   thing  over-ripe,    and    shedding   itself 
abroad  through  the  screen,  still  aglow  and  melodious 
and    odorous,    spilling    its    sensuous   affluence.      June 
passed,  and  then  Aubrey  waited  on  in  the  emptying 
building;  horrible  emptiness,  not  a  clean  void,  but  in- 
fested, deflowered,  staling,  all  dust  and  used  breath  and 
flat  fumes  from  the  cup  of  the  rite's  glorious  drunken- 
ness.    People  too — as  the  last  of  them  left  he  thought 
he  could  see  illusion  die  out  on  their  lips  and  eyes  as 
fast  as  a  rose  afterglow  sinks  to  dead  white  on  the 
snow  when  real  night  comes.    June  would  be  different; 
she  would  not  change ;  could  he  see  her  now  she  would 
be  still  the  staunch  fanatic,  shaming  those  weak  ones. 
Or  might  she — ?    Oh,  it  was  useless,  all  this  putting 
off;   it  was  shirking;  it  only  gave  time  for  maudlin 
delusion  to  sneak  its  way  in;  the  firing  line  was  wher- 


266  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

ever  June  was;  it  was  only  there  that  the  thing  to  do, 
whatever  it  was,  could  be  found.  He  rose  and  ran 
after  her,  slipping  and  pressing  through  the  thinned 
rear  of  the  leaving  crowd. 

She  was  in  sight;  that  was  good;  she  was  alone, 
walking  fast.  '  Miss  Hathersage!  "  Aubrey  called,  at 
her  shoulder,  hardening  himself  to  forego  the  right, 
lost  or  suspended,  to  say  "  June!  " 

She  turned  at  the  touch  of  the  voice.  She  darted 
a  hand  out,  or  both;  both,  he  thought  afterwards. 
'  You!  "  she  cried;  "  Aubrey!  "  and  looked  as  people 
do  at  a  thing  just  thrown  up  in  the  air,  with  wide  eyes 
and  the  lips  apart,  and  the  head  back  a  little,  so  that 
the  light  fell  clear  on  her  face;  it  had  a  flush  so  sud- 
den and  strong  that  it  seemed  to  move  over  her  cheeks 
like  a  beautiful  patch  of  red  shadow. 

"  I  saw  you  in  that  place,"  he  said  dully.  All  his 
might  had  been  put  into  that  first  effort  to  speak  to  her 
coldly,  and  she  had  not  even  seen  it;  her  generosity 
could  not  perceive  it. 

'You'll  come  down  to-morrow?'  she  eagerly 
pressed  him.  'Early?  No?  In  the  afternoon,  then. 
I  go  back  to-night.  You  can't  stay  in  the  house. 
It's  being  painted  and  father  and  Guy  are  away  for 
two  days;  I  biouvac  in  my  room  and  the  drawing- 
room,  the  only  dry  spots.  You'll  stay  at  Brunt  Farm. 
You  don't  know  it,  of  course — our  annexe,  half  a 
mile  off,  a  place  like  a  Swiss  hotel's — a  dependance; 
we  put  people  there,  to  sleep,  when  there's  no  room  at 
home.     We  have  not  many  bedrooms,  you  know." 

She  ran  on,  the  little  things  that  she  had  to  say 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  267 

tumbling  over  each  other.  Her  eyes  had  no  rest, 
either;  now  they  would  glance  past  his  neck  on  one 
side  and  then  on  the  other  and  then  straight  into  his 
face,  most  shiningly,  and  then  drop  as  if  hit,  and  then 
lift  and  take  light  again.  It  was  strange  to  Aubrey  at 
first;  he  did  not  recognize  it — had  never  seen  any  one 
else  overjoyed,  nor  known  that  the  word  could  ever 
mean  all  that  it  claims,  and  that  the  first  rush  of  a 
happiness  could  be  distraction  and  fritter  its  own  ex- 
pression away  into  incoherence.  All  the  time  she  would 
talk,  breaking  off  and  restarting  and  flitting  from 
this  to  that  as  if  each  theme  were  the  only  one  in  the 
world  for  one  moment,  and  trivial  the  next — Cusheen; 
and  Aubrey's  play  that  had  been  performed — oh,  tri- 
umphantly— while  he  was  there;  and  a  first  brief  of 
Guy's — or  would  that  come  later? — anyhow,  a  suc- 
cess of  some  sort;  and  the  trouble  it  was  to  hold  up 
their  little  secret — they  really  must  give  up  their  fur- 
tive trinket  of  privacy  now.  She  talked  as  if  harm 
might  happen  if  there  were  a  silence.  "  You'll  find 
other  guests  at  the  farm — Dr.  Schweinfurth,  the 
African  traveler,  anthropologist,  father's  old  friend; 
he's  writing  a  book  on  our  wild  English  ways;  and — " 
her  voice  checked  for  the  first  time. 

"  Newman?  "  said  Aubrey. 

"  Yes.  He  is  still  there.  Guy  seems  to  like  him, 
and  father,  too.     They  think  I  judge  harshly." 

"  He  comes  to  your  house  ?  " 

"  Every  day,  when  they're  here.  But  now  there's 
a  rest.  And  you're  coming.  You're  coming.  You're 
coming."      She   had   congealed    for   a   moment;    she 


2G8  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

melted  again,  with  a  little  fling  of  gladness,  saying  the 
words  over  and  over  again  as  if  at  the  first  time  she 
had  found  something  precious  and  then  held  it  to 
gaze  at.  '  Why  did  you  not  write  any  more?"  she 
suddenly  asked  in  a  voice  that  did  not  chide,  and 
scarcely  inquired,  but  meant,  "  You  might  not  write 
for  a  year,  you  might  not  give  a  sign,  and  I  would  not 
fear  or  doubt." 

He  stammered  some  lie  about  preoccupations.  He 
had  a  dry  throat ;  it  had  come  on  him  while  she  talked. 
He  failed;  he  had  come  out  to  tell  her  the  truth,  but 
the  truth  had  changed — part  of  it  had;  for  she  was 
not  what  he  had  then  foreseen;  the  thing  to  be 
wounded  or  crushed  when  he  spoke  was  as  much  more 
a  thing  to  be  guarded  and  spared  than  he  could  ever 
have  thought  before,  as  life  is  more  to  be  spared  than 
a  statue. 

She  did  not  wait  for  his  last  husky  word;  she  broke 
in  with  an  inarticulate  murmur  of  soft  remonstrance 
to  soothe  away  the  idea  that  she  could  exact  excuses 
from  him;  why,  she  had  not  half  thanked  him  for 
"  all  he  had  done  " — it  had  made  Cusheen  rich,  paid 
all  its  rents  and  upset  beside  it  a  cornucopia  of  new 
clothes  and  maize  and  seed  potatoes.  "  Father  Power 
has  written  and  told  me  everything — oh,  yes,  every- 
thing." 

Out  of  breath,  her  eyes  dark  with  dilation,  she 
looked  at  him  with  a  fond  wildness.  Everything! 
Aubrey's  teeth  bit  on  the  irony  of  it.  Doubtless  his 
little  swimming  practice  with  Power  was  "  every- 
thing."    Lithe,    noble   creature,    generous   and   wild, 


THE  MORNINGS  WAR  269 

that  did  not  yet  know  it  was  caged;  it  licked  the  bars 
unsuspectingly.  Aubrey  turned  from  her,  disabled 
again. 

When  they  said  good-by  his  hand  returned  her  full 
pressure.  He  groaned  for  it  when  she  was  gone.  He 
had  done  nothing  yet,  had  drifted  on,  only. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

"  O  that  'twere  possible, 

After  long  grief  and  pain. 

To  find  the  arms  of  my  true  love 

Round  me  once  again  !  " 

Tennyson. 

JUNE  had  two  callers  next  day,  before  Aubrey- 
came.  First,  Lady  Roads,  wife  of  the  sovereign 
vendor  of  baseness  in  print.  Honor  had  found  her 
out  since  the  day  when  she  brought  angry  blood  to 
June's  cheeks  on  the  Anthons'  lawn.  It  had  not  made 
her  unpractical.  "  I  had  to  come,  dear,"  she  said;  she 
had  been  a  small  actress,  and  called  people  dears;  "  to 
beg  a  thing  of  you." 

"  Tell  me."  In  spite  of  the  "  dear  "  June  thawed 
to  the  distress  in  the  voice. 

"You  darling!  But  if  it's  the  slightest  trouble 
you'll  send  me  straight  home? — promise.  It's  this — 
do  you  think  you'll  be  seeing  that  dear  Mr.  Browne 
who  was  with  you — three  weeks  ago,  is  it?' 

"  He's  coming  to-day.  Not  to  stay  here.  At  the 
farm.  You  don't  know  Brunt  Farm  ?  "  June  rose ; 
she  wanted  to  turn  her  face  away  for  a  moment. 
She  went  to  the  open  door-window.  "  It's  down 
there,"  she  said,  pointing  across  bleaching  stubble  to 
where  a  low  roof  basked  in  a  sun-filled  hollow. 

"  And  then  he'll  be  coming  here.    Might  I  come  in, 

270 


THE  MORNINGS  WAR  271 

some  time  when  he's  here,  just  to  explain  how 
wretched  my  poor  George  is  for  having  flown 
out  the  way  he  did — oh,  you  don't  know,  of 
course  ?  " 

June  remembered.  Roads  had  coveted  Aubrey  for 
a  recruit  to  the  gainful  business  of  rotting  England's 
brain  and  heart  towards  their  fall.  June  hearkened 
patiently. 

"  It  was  at  dear  Lady  Anthon's.  I  thought  you 
must  really  have  heard — George's  voice  does  penetrate 
so;  not  when  he's  arguing — George  never  argues;  he 
knows  too  well  what  people  are;  he  only  told  Mr. 
Browne  the  plain  truth,  because  he  thought  he  could 
speak  to  him  like  a  father — that  he  was  just  a  young 
man,  with  the  world  to  face  still." 

"Was  he  not?" 

"Then?  Yes,  of  course.  But  George  hadn't  a 
notion  that  Mr.  Browne  was  going  to  come  off,  the 
way  he  has  done,  with  those  letters  that  made  people 
send  all  the  money,  and  now  this  play  that  everybody 
is  talking  about?  " 

"  Are  they?  ,:  It  was  not  straightforward  of  June. 
She  knew.  But  she  could  not  help  angling  for  even 
the  poorest  take  of  the  delicious  praise. 

"  My  dear,  it's  the  boomiest  boom.  Even  the  stupid 
old  critics  all  say  it's  good — that's  the  queer  thing — ■ 
and  yet  it's  quite  simple;  George  says  that  nobody  else 
would  dare  write  that  way,  for  fear  of  not  seeming 
to  know  enough.  George  and  I  saw  it  last  night. 
He  almost  cried  in  the  box." 

"Poor  Mr.  Browne!     At  his  comedy?' 


272  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

'  No,  but  it  hurt  George  so,  not  to  be  friends  with 
a  person  like  that,  when  he  might  have  been.  '  Why, 
he's  a  natural  force,'  George  kept  on  saying,  '  same 
as  springs  that  table  waters  come  from.  He's  like  a 
mint  running  wild,'  George  said;  '  it's  Nature,  fair 
broke  loose  and  spouting  money,  like  the  oil-wells.' 
George  does  love  to  be  at  peace  with  Nature — just 
as  if  we  were  still  quite  poor,  he's  so  conscientious. 
Oh!" 

That  moving  stillness,  the  End  House  butler,  mani- 
festing itself  near  her  elbow,  startled  the  pleading 
wife.  Her  own  butler,  the  "  Oh!  "  seemed  to  say,  was 
less  still.  Dr.  Schweinfurth  had  called,  the  still  but- 
ler said.  He  would  not  come  in  yet;  he  had  gone  to 
the  library;  there  were  a  note  and  a  parcel  left  for  him 
there  by  Mr.  Hathersage. 

June  smiled.     The  old  friend  was  free  of  the  house. 
:  You  know  him?  "  she  asked  Lady  Roads. 

The  man  who  knows  all  about  the   little,   short 
African  savages?  " 

"  Yes.  He  has  torn  himself  from  them  now,  for  a 
year,  to  discover  England." 

Then  Aubrey  came.  June's  back  was  turned  to 
the  door,  but  she  knew  he  was  there,  before  she  had 
seen  him  or  heard  the  name,  whether  it  was  that  he 
pressed  through  the  air  in  a  way  that  no  one  else  had, 
so  that  a  ripple  reached  her  which  only  he  could  have 
shaped,  or  whether  his  tread  alone  was,  like  a  voice, 
wholly  personal. 

There  was  a  soft  but  full  light  in  the  room,  not  like 
the  murk  of  London  yesterday,  where  one  could  only 


THE  MORNINGS  WAR  273 

make  out  the  main  signals  run  up  in  another's  face  by 
the  moment's  quickened  blood  or  a  thrilled  nerve; 
here  all  the  book  of  expression  lay  open.  And  in  June 
it  had  been  filled;  Aubrey  saw  she  had  grown  in  a 
way  that  made  the  petulant  girl  of  the  Roc-a-Voir 
dining-room  seem  a  thing  crude,  like  green  fruit,  to 
remember.  Her  whole  face  had  attained  a  more 
serene  oval ;  every  f  rettish  or  querulous  line  that  had 
drawn  it  before  must  have  let  itself  go.  Yet  her 
forehead  had  pensiveness,  not  corrugative,  but  a 
benign  glow;  not  a  shadow,  and  yet  it  foreshadowed; 
he  had  not  imagined  till  then  how  much  of  the  maiden 
mind  may  be  already  wedded,  from  when  it  is  pledged, 
and  mothering  to-morrow's  world. 

She  was  transparent,  plane  behind  plane,  far  into 
the  deep  place,  behind  her  eyes,  from  which  her  soul 
ran  to  embrace  him;  over  that,  not  wholly  hiding  it, 
played  the  hostess'  frank  kindness,  done  with  a  will — 
he  might  have  been  some  guest  so  little  cared  for  that 
courtesy,  fearing  to  fail,  filled  the  cup  till  it  spilt.  And 
over  all  that,  in  its  turn,  there  sparkled,  for  him  only 
to  see,  her  affection's  amusement  to  find  itself  flaunt- 
ing that  mask. 

She  said  soon,  "  May  I  leave  you  two  people  a 
moment  ?  Lady  Roads  has  a  mission  to  you,"  she 
smiled  to  Aubrey,  "  and  I  a  little  one  to  Dr. 
Schweinfurth.  My  father  has  left  a  gift  for 
him." 

Then  she  was  gone,  and  the  air  flat,  and  the  baro- 
net's lady  was  losing  no  time.  "  Do  tell  me,  now, 
just  what  it's  like,  to  wake  up  one  morning  and  find 


274  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

yourself  famous?'  And  then,  without  pausing  an 
instant,  "  Sir  George  was  so  glad." 

;'  Glad  ?  '  Aubrey  echoed  inanely,  his  eyes  on 
the  crack  of  the  door,  shamelessly,  like  a  turned-out 
collie's. 

'  So  glad — and  I  know  you  would  want  to  be  just, 
and  I  can't  bear  to  see  my  poor  darling  suffer,  the  way 
he  was  doing  last  night,  when  they  cheered  your  play 
so — the  whole  house  was  furious,  I  heard,  the  first 
night,  because  you  weren't  there.  It  was  his  dread, 
you  know,  lest  he  had  wronged  a  great  soul.  There's 
something  so  fine  about  George — he's  so  utterly 
frank  and  good  in  that  way — so  ready  always  to 
say  '  I  was  wrong,'  don't  you  know,  like  the 
Prayer  Book — '  erred  and  been  deceived.'  You 
believe  it,  don't  you? — if  he  could  ever  have  dreamt 
what  last  night  would  be  like,  or  how  splendid  your 
letters  would  be,  in  that  dreadful  paper,  he  couldn't 
have  said  one  word  that  could  ever  wound  you.  You 
do  believe  that?  " 

He  heard  idly,  as  people  look,  from  a  blurring  dis- 
tance, at  something  that  might  be  curious  if  it  were 
near.     "  Oh,  yes,  I  do." 

"  Thank  you,  so  much."  She  rambled  on, 
ending,  "And  you're  friends  with  George?  You'll 
come — ?  " 

"  Ah ! ,:  He  had  jumped  up.  Dr.  Schweinfurth 
came,  radiant.  Big,  blond  and  mild,  he  advanced  with 
effulgent  moist  eyes,  one  hand  holding  June's  with  a 
gesture  of  unexhausted  or  still  incompletely  expressed 
affection  or  thanks,  the  other  holding  a  longish,  slim 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  275 

case  of  fine  rosewood,  lidded  with  plate  glass  and 
brassy  with  purposeful  locks  like  a  jewel  casket's. 
Under  his  beard  his  lips  moved  each  time  he  gave  the 
box  a  look  of  devotion.  He  simmered  with  rapture; 
in  happy,  warm  words  it  lipped  over:  "Your  father's 
liberal  knowledge;"  "his  great  intelligence;"  "he 
understands  " — the  Teuton's  last,  vastest  eulogy. 

June  introduced  them  all,  playfully  puffing  Aubrey 
— "  our  new  British  dramatist."  She  was  impelled  to 
say  the  last  things  that  she  would  have  said  if  he  were 
yet  her  known  lover. 

"  Dramatist  ?  So  ?  "  The  German's  eyes,  willing 
to  be  polite,  but  unable,  wavered  between  Aubrey's 
face  and  the  rosewood. 

June  laughed  and  gave  in  to  the  child  in  the  big 
man.  She  looked  at  the  box,  to  let  him  look  too. 
"  My  father  was  given  it,"  June  said,  "  by  Major 
Legard — you  know  Major  Legard?  " 

"  Know  Legard !  Why,  we  were  there — at  the 
same  time — in  Africa." 

"  Oh,  then  you  would  meet,  of  course,"  Lady  Roads 
babbled   in,   meaning  no  irony. 

"  Legard,"  Schweinfurth  tolled  momentously, 
"  has — Legard  had"  he  amended,  giving  a  jubilant  tap 
on  the  case's  glass  lid,  "  three  of  what  nobody  else  in 
Europe  or  Asia  has.  As  for  America,  I  cannot  say. 
Legard  had  three  of  the  genuine,  perfect  war-arrows 
used  by  the  Malantu,  with  all  the  poison  on.  The 
Malantu — you  know  about  them?"  His  eye  ranged 
the  company. 


276  THE  MORNING'S  AVAR 

"  I  am  so  sorry,  I  fear  I  don't,"  June  said,  for  them 

all. 

"  The  tribe  was — the  glory  is  gone,  but  it  was — the 
one  fighting  race  in  all  the  unspoiled  part  of  Africa, 
that  had  the  two  sitmma  bona  of  primitive  life  to- 
gether— good,  thin  tips  of  steel  for  its  arrows,  and 
good,  strong,  quick  poison  to  dip  them  in — poison  to 
kill,  at  the  very  worst,  in  an  hour,  often  in  only  a  half, 
and  to  paralyze  sooner,  first  the  limbs,  then  the  body, 
last  the  brain  also.  At  that  stage  of  civilization,  what 
a  thing  for  a  people !  How  they  got  the  steel — that  is 
one  of  the  wonders.  And  now  Legard  has  given  your 
father  one  of  the  only  three  arrows!  Love,  indeed, 
beyond  love  of  brothers,  when  men  make  such  gifts. 
And  your  father  has  given  it  me !  " 

He  opened  the  case  with  musing  tenderness,  took 
out  the  minute  dart  and  held  up  its  delicate  tip.  '  Per- 
fect !  "  he  almost  maundered.  "  Look  at  the  poisonous 
glaze,  aqueous,  turbid  a  little,  as  on  a  good  Persian 
vase.  One  tear  in  the  skin,  one  prick,  and — man  is  but 
a  shadow — do  not  waste  your  half  hour  in  seeing  the 
doctor.  Myths  there  have  been,  of  old  demi-gods,  that 
could  throw  off  the  poison.  Myth  is  good,  but,  for 
proof,  the  doctors  have  tried,  first  the  poison  and  then 
all  the  antidotes  in  the  world,  upon  great  dogs, 
baboons,  pigs,  every  beast  most  correspondent  to  man. 
One,  at  last,  by  an  accident,  on  himself.  Useless! 
They  nothing  could." 

His  eyes  doted  awhile  on  the  tiny  winged  death. 
Sir  Bors  might  have  looked  at  the  Holy  Grail  so, 


THE  MORNING'S  WAlt  277 

Aubrey  thought.  Then,  detaching  his  eyes,  the  great 
man  said  to  June,  "  I  am  glad  I  have  come." 

She  laughed  affectionately.  Lady  Roads  held  her 
breath  till  the  case  closed  again;  the  released  air  es- 
caped in  a  little  gasp,  unaffected  for  once. 

'  It  is  rather  awful,  isn't  it?  "  June  said,  in  extenua- 
tion of  those  flinching  nerves.  Her  own  had  not 
winced. 

But  Lady  Roads  was  real  no  longer  than  she  was 
afraid.  "  So  awful!  "  she  prattled,  making  her  voice 
pretty  again,  "  and  yet  the  poor  things  had  to  do  what 
they  could.  Such  a  noble  epitaph  that,  I  do  think — 
'  He  did  what  he  could  ';  I've  always  thought  it  was 
what  I  should  like  for  dear  George.  Well,  I  must 
rush.  Good-by,  Dr.  Schweinfurth;  I  have  been  so 
much  interested.  Good-by,  Mr.  Browne,  my  husband 
will  be  so  glad.  I'll  write  to  you.  Good-by,  dear." 
June  would  have  been  kissed  had  her  prescient  dread 
of  it  not  shed  a  quick  mist  of  delicate  coldness  over 
the  parting. 

.  Schweinfurth  had  stowed  his  treasure  in  some  vast 
inner  pocket.  He  probed  his  coat's  outer  wall  at  short 
intervals,  lest  the  case  should  have  missed  the  right 
orifice.  June  went  out  with  him  into  the  hall  when  he 
left.  Her  voice  could  be  heard,  round  and  full,  as  they 
traversed  it,  then  suddenly  distant  and  thin,  at  the 
opened  front  door. 

Then  it  closed;  her  steps  were  returning,  eager, 
quickening  as  she  came  on.  Aubrey  had  sat  down. 
He  jumped  up  and  went  to  the  open  door- window  and 
stood  looking  out,  his  back  half  turned  to  the  room; 


278  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

lie  did  not  know  why  he  did  that ;  he  had  not  decided 
to  do  it ;  it  was  not  a  chosen  step  towards  some  other 
step  after  it ;  but  he  had  done  it  when  June,  at  his 
shoulder,  called  him  by  name;  he  had  foregone  the 
embrace  that  was  his  to  take.  He  turned  his  head  to 
her,  woodenly. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

"  Hamlet.     I  did  love  you  once. 
Ophelia.     Indeed,  my  lord,  you  made  me  believe  so. 
Hamlet.     You  should  not  have  believed  me." 

Hamlet,  Act  iii.,  sc.  I. 

JUNE  had  in  her  hand  an  unopened  letter.  She 
must  have  picked  it  up  in  the  hall  on  her  way. 
When  Aubrey  held  back,  her  eyes  fell  to  it.  "  From 
my  Aunt  Kate,"  she  said ;  "  from  Rathfarnham ;  the 
answer  to  mine."  She  flicked  the  closed  envelope  on 
to  a  table,  to  wait. 

Aubrey  looked  out  again,  as  her  eyes  rose.  "  It's 
good  here,''  he  said.  Over  the  undulant  hills  and  used 
cornlands  the  brown  autumn  stillness  was  shed  like  a 
mood.  He  shammed  admiration;  it  made  an  excuse 
for  flinching  away  from  the  sight  of  her  face,  where 
the  lights  were  a  little  sunk  that  her  joy  had  hung  out 
for  their  festival. 

"Is  it?':  she  asked  quaintly,  refusing  to  be  de- 
ceived. She  put  a  light,  deprecant  touch  on  his  arm. 
"  Tell  me,"  she  said,  not  quite  as  a  mother  prompts  a 
child  to  say  out  something  it  has  on  its  mind,  nor  yet 
as  a  child  asks  its  father  to  tell  it  about  the  great 
world,  but  still  with  a  trace  of  the  tenderness  of  the 
one  and  the  wist  fulness  of  the  other. 

He  turned  to  her  sharply,  in  fear  of  softening. 
"About  what?" 

279 


280  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

"  Everything." 

"  May  we  go  out?  " 

She  stepped  into  the  garden,  obedient.  There  was 
a  lawn  under  the  windows.  Flanking  the  lawn,  on  one 
side,  like  an  aisle,  with  a  hedge  between,  was  a  plot  of 
flower-beds  veined  with  a  maze  of  pebbled  path. 
Looking  over  it,  southward,  a  seat  of  red  brick,  an 
Italianate  toy,  a  piece  of  "  taste,"  was  canopied  with 
trailing  vines.  They  had  reached  it  before  either 
spoke,  June  awaiting  an  answer,  Aubrey  holding  at 
bay  what  had  come  and  treasuring  each  unruined 
second. 

With  a  gesture  she  made  him  sit  there.  She  sat 
down,  too,  with  a  space  between  them,  both  looking 
out  sunwards  over  the  motionless,  waiting  flowers. 
Each  was  a  little  turned  in  towards  the  other. 

'  Begin,"  she  said,  more  like  the  mother  now  than 
the  boy. 

He  made  a  gulping  effort  and  then  shied  away  at  the 
last,  and  only  gave  up  delayful  silence  to  clutch  at 
delayful  speech. 

"  Oh,  I — caught  the  night  mail  out  from  Euston,"  he 
pattered ;  "  another  night  mail  west  from  Dublin — " 
'  Two  nights  with  no  sleep.    You  poor  one." 

"Oh,  no;  I  slept." 

"  You  woke  early,  in  that  ghastly  light — like  faint- 
ing faces,  you  said.  I  know;  it  discourages;  I  awoke 
too.  No,  I  had  been  awake,  thinking;  you  seemed  so 
indescribably  little  out  there,  like  a  child  lost  in  a 
desert." 

She  had  not  moved  on  the  seat,  but  her  voice  and  her 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  281 

eyes  had  come  nearer;  like  lights  and  bells  of  a  haven 
they  offered  rest.  More  than  that ;  she  was  enriched 
again  and  ripened ;  within  her  some  rose  of  precarious 
and  poignant  delight  had  burst  into  passionate  bloom, 
its  petals  aglow  in  her  cheek  and  their  curves  on  her 
lips,  a  beauty  that  shed  every  sheathing,  to  spill  round 
the  senses  its  odor  and  luster  of  treasuring  tender- 
ness. 

What  could  he  do,  that  had  the  passion  himself  of 
the  full,  contained  vessel  of  youth?  Values  were 
changing,  purposes  melting,  in  this  rose  mist  that  he 
swam  in.  One  thing  he  could  hold  to — she  must  not 
be  cheated;  she  had  to  be  told.  But  when  she  should 
hear?  He  foresaw  her  face  streaming  as  if  with  blood 
from  that  blowr.  Need  he  hasten  her  marring?  Time, 
in  this  yellowing  garden,  had  lost  motion.  Not  a  leaf 
rustled;  the  sun  hung  becalmed  in  still  haze;  the 
earth's  hastening  was  over.  What  was  a  minute,  or 
more,  in  that  timeless  world  ? 

"  About  Cusheen?  "  she  asked. 

"That  dreadful  place?'1  he  said,  merely  putting 
her  off  to  gaze  at  her  as  she  still  was. 

"Dreadful?" 

He  roused  from  his  gazing,  a  little.  He  had  to  find 
something  to  say,  merely  to  keep  both  of  the  forking 
roads  untaken  for  one  minute  more.  "  Why  didn't 
you  tell  me  about  it?"  he  said,  in  a  voice  of  forced 
hardness.  For  softness  would  have  been  one  of  the 
roads. 

"  I  didn't  know,"  she  pleaded.     "  Tell  me." 

She  almost  whispered  these  words,  with  a  quick 


282  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

outstretch  of  her  face — some  infinitesimal  part  of  an 
inch,  but  it  seemed  to  bring  her  whole  body  nearer,  as 
though  the  spirit  that  Hung  itself  towards  his  were 
carrying  with  it  its  envelope.  Aubrey  lost  strength 
for  a  moment  or  two ;  for  that  time  their  fate  hung  un- 
certain ;  it  fluttered  in  air  like  a  flake  of  snow  that  has 
not  alighted  yet,  over  the  ridge  of  the  Andes;  still 
poised  between  Atlantic  and  Pacific,  the  flap  of  an 
insect's  wing  might  decide  to  which  of  two  oceans  it 
shall  go.  Some  breath  of  a  gadding  wind  makes  the 
great  choice  for  the  flake ;  in  Aubrey  there  stirred  the 
remembrance  of  June  in  the  Anthons'  garden,  the 
devotee  wounded.  "Tell  you  what?'  he  asked, 
harshly. 

"  All  that  you  found  at  Cusheen." 

"  Oh,  I  saw  women  hunting  potatoes  in  little 
patches  of  mud.     They  all  coughed." 

"  Yes?  "  She  did  not  harden  at  his  hard  voice.  It 
only  moved  her,  as  mothers  awaked  in  the  night  are 
moved  at  feeling  sick  babies  beat  and  kick  at  the  breast 
with  minute,  troubled  limbs. 

"  There  were  men  who  scraped  weed  off  the  rocks 
and  laid  it  on  flat  stones,  to  cheat  seeds  into  thinking 
them  earth.  Good  work,  good  worm's  work — you 
know  the  big  book  about  earthworms — Darwin's, 
isn't  it?    That's  Cusheen's  history." 

"  All  of  it?  "  There  was  a  silence.  Then  she  said, 
as  a  comrade  says  to  a  sure  comrade  who  holds  back  a 
little  thing  for  an  instant,  "  Don't  keep  me  out  of  it 
all.    It  hurts." 

He  had  no  hope  but  in  rollicking  hardness  now. 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  283 

"  Oh,  yes,  things  hurt;  they're  for  that.     I  found  that 
out  there." 

Her  hand  went  out  and  lit  on  his  arm.  "  Aubrey," 
she  said  most  softly,  inviting  his  eyes. 

He  could  double  no  more.  Her  challenging  love 
had  brought  him  to  bay  under  the  dead  wall  to  which 
he  had  known  they  must  come.  "  No,  curse  it !  "  he 
groaned,  "  I  can't  have  you  touch  me,"  and  let  his  arm 
fall  slack  from  under  her  hand. 

Even  then  he  had  made  no  choice  of  a  course.  What 
he  did  could  hardly  be  said  to  be  willed.  Falling  down 
the  face  of  a  crag,  he  was  grasping,  not  at  the  best 
hold,  but  at  anything.  He  stood  up.  "  No;  sit  there," 
he  ordered.  Almost  behind  her  he  stood,  to  escape 
seeing  her  eyes.  '  Listen.  The  thing  I  found  out  was 
— it's  no  use — my  trying  to  love  you." 

:  You  don't  ?  '  It  was  hardly  even  a  wail,  for  a 
wail  may  have  life,  but  this  was  the  very  ashes  of  pain. 
She  seemed  to  sink  into  herself  and  grow  small,  as  the 
faces  of  people  expiring  do,  she  was  so  pressed  in 
upon,  from  without,  by  mobbing  griefs  and  shames. 

1  Shall  I  go  ?  "  he  asked  with  some  stupid  impulse  to 
lie  no  more  than  he  need,  or  at  least  to  let  silence  do 
the  rest  of  the  lying. 

'  Not  yet."  She  got  the  words  out  as  soon  as,  in 
some  dim  war  which  she  must  be  fighting  within,  she 
had  gained  a  moment's  mastery.  Then  the  war  went 
on. 

Unendurable  silence ;  he  could  not  keep  it.  "  Hate 
me,  hate  me,  hate  me !  "  he  prompted  her  savagely. 


284  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

"  See  what  a  brute !  You  can't  clo  it  yet  as  you  should. 
You  must,  when  you  see." 

"  No,  no,  no !  '  She  was  heard  speaking  far  off,  as 
people  are  who,  with  matters  of  moment  to  heed,  blow- 
away  almost  absently  any  dust-specks  of  intrusion  that 
settle  on  them. 

"  You'll  think  of  forgiving!  "  he  jibed,  straining  to 
bind  himself  over,  to  cut  off  retreat.  ;  You  do,  you 
people  that  have  religions.     Forgive!' 

"  Wait !  "  For  a  little  longer  she  held  off  from  her 
the  things  that  he  said,  while  she  mustered  her  own 
battered  remnant  of  will.  Then  she  began :  "Au- 
brey—" 

"  Still?  "  he  said,  at  the  name. 

"  Till  you  go — may  I  ?  " 

He  relaxed  guard  a  little ;  she  seemed  to  accept ;  per- 
haps it  was  all  done  now.  He  even  began  already  to 
look  back  as  a  Cain  might  do  to  all  the  time  in  which 
he  had  not  hurt  Abel,  and  see  his  lost  riches  shining,  a 
great  way  off,  like  some  old  delight  in  a  book.  The 
brutal  lie  severed  them  now,  by  his  act;  the  flaming 
sword  stood  at  the  gate ;  he  stared  at  it  numbly,  think- 
ing, "  I  made  it." 

She  was  speaking.  "  You  are  you  still,  and  I  I," 
she  began.  She  looked  round  and  up  and  he  saw  in 
her  face  a  flicker  yet  of  the  light  he  had  stamped  upon. 

He  only  half  hardened  again.  '  No,  we're  stone 
dead;  I,  at  least;  can't  you  see?  Things  that  one  does 
may  be  death,  and  more  than  it;  they  put  an  end  to 
more  than  what  stops  when  your  body  dies  and  your 
soul  hasn't  groveled.    Think?  " 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  285 

She  rose,  her  eyes  on  him ;  in  them  the  flicker,  that 
Aubrey  had  thought  to  quench,  was  leaping  again  into 
flame.  'As  if  I  could  think!  Do  a  sum,  all  about 
you?  Count  up  what's  good  and  bad  in  you  and  then, 
if  the  bad  things  are  more,  give  you  up!  I  can't.  It's 
not  like  that.  It's  all  just  an  aching  awareness  of  your 
being  you  and  my  wanting  you  and  that  I'm  nothing 
without  you — no  more  than  a  fiddle  would  be,  after 
everybody  was  dead." 

She  spoke  like  an  incarnation  of  love,  unashamed, 
unafraid,  unexacting,  unjudging,  more  self-surrender- 
ingly  his,  to  take  and  keep,  than  she  ever  had  been. 
He  might  have  turned  back,  even  then.  But  he  was 
distracted.  He  saw  her  as  men  in  a  falling  fort,  who 
are  shooting  their  wives  and  daughters  to  keep  them 
from  more  cruel  ends,  may  look  at  faces  that  they  have 
only  wounded  in  trying  to  kill.  Murder's  mad  lust  for 
completion  was  frenzied  the  more  by  anguished  tender- 
ness. '  Damn  it,  I  swear  I  don't  love  you,"  he 
growled;  'I  swear.  Won't  that  do  you?  I  thought 
you  were  proud." 

He  went  on ;  he  forced  the  brutality  wildly,  heaping 
affronts  on  her,  desperately  trying  to  stun  her  before 
the  sight  of  her,  with  the  blows  falling  upon  her,  could 
break  him.  At  last  she  went  slack,  her  body  shrinking 
down  on  the  seat.  She  did  not  weep,  but  looked  out 
lifelessly  over  the  still  flowers,  as  if  sick  with  dull  pain. 

He  stood  there,  sick  too.  All  the  garden  was  tense 
with  sick  pain ;  the  still  haze  on  the  hills  was  the  look 
of  a  paralyzed  animal  put  to  the  torture.  "  Shall  I 
go?  "  he  said,  when  he  could. 


286  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

She  just  moved  her  head;  he  went,  upon  that.  In  a 
convex  mirror  placed  at  the  alley's  end  he  saw  her  last, 
a  tiny  figure  of  devastation,  her  face  not  yet  in  her 
hands ;  he  was  shut  out  from  the  right  to  see  that. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

"Death  will  find  some  way  to  untie  or  cut  the  most  Gordian 
knots  of  life."  Sir  Thomas  Browne. 

AT  seven  that  evening  supper  was  on  at  Brunt 
Farm,  in  an  antique  kitchen,  now  a  kitchen  no 
longer,  but  prized  above  parlors  by  amateurs  of  the 
quaint.  It  was  windowless,  almost;  the  fireplace  filled 
a  whole  wall;  the  shut  nail-studded  door  of  the  farm 
was  half  the  wall  opposite.  Candlelight  made  the  place 
snugly  cavernous,  deepened  the  sockets  of  people's 
eyes  and  aspired  intently  up  through  the  quiet  air  with 
the  straight,  striving  flame  that  can  bring  a  few  sec- 
onds' trance  if  you  gaze  at  it  with  a  set  will  like  its 
own.  Aubrey  tried  for  that  anodyne  once,  at  a  mo- 
ment of  silence.  He  and  Schweinfurth  were  supping 
alone ;  Newman  was  out  "  to  his  tea,"  as  the  farmer's 
wife  told  them,  at  Mr.  Nick-Ross's. 

The  name  recalled  Oxford  to  Aubrey,  his  second 
year  there,  and  a  Harrow  freshman,  a  boy  like  a  finely- 
bred  flower,  the  infantine  grace  of  his  urbane  face 
scarcely  flecked  then,  sodden  soon  afterwards.  Au- 
brey remembered :  he  noticed  that  he  remembered : 
parts  of  him  went  on,  just  as  they  used  to.  Like  one 
who  comes  to  himself  after  a  fall,  his  mind  moved  a 
little,  felt  at  its  limbs,  bent  a  joint  here  and  there, 
wondering  what  would  still  work.    Battered  with  loss, 

287 


288  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

rolled  in  the  mud  of  his  lying,  still  he  did  not  want  to 
be  broken:  his  instinct  was  loyal  to  life;  like  a  torn 
tissue  in  highly  vascular  flesh,  an  unquestioning  im- 
pulse, practical,  plodding,  strove  already  to  build  up 
again  tiny  cell  upon  cell. 

Kings  may  be  blest,  but  the  German  was  glorious. 
"  Like  them  that  dream  "  did  he  eat  wild  duck  and  the 
milk  pudding  of  Britain.  They  were  well  cooked, 
there  was  good  claret  too,  and  he  was  a  traveler. 
"  It's  good  to  be  here,"  he  said,  with  a  fork  upheld 
tridentwise;  nothing  at  Brunt  Farm  could  revolt  him 
now,  not  the  hill  of  manure  that  sloped  to  the  duck- 
pond  and  stained  it  sour  brown,  nor  the  stable  where 
John,  the  laborer,  slept  in  his  clothes  among  the  feet 
of  his  horses.  All  is  well  where  your  own  Holy  Grail 
has  appeared :  his  lay  on  the  far  end  of  the  table,  be- 
yond the  white  cloth;  his  eyes  sought  it  at  times,  to 
drink  rapture,  leaving  the  meat  that  perisheth.  Aubrey 
listened,  at  first  as  the  very  sick  look  out  from  their 
beds  when  a  little  better,  pondering  dully  on  having 
the  use  of  their  reopened  eyes.  Then  he  talked;  the 
tongue  worked  of  itself,  it  was  queer  how  fluently — 
more  than  if  no  blow  had  fallen.  Soon  he  took  or 
found  cues  like  a  host ;  he  chattered  along,  making  a 
little,  or  nothing,  go  a  shameless  long  way ;  he  retailed, 
for  twice  what  they  were  worth,  little  things  he  had 
heard,  it  might  be  at  third  hand — how  John,  in  his 
cups,  had  once  broken  a  leg  and  lain  between  hospital 
sheets  for  some  weeks  in  great  misery,  sleepless  till  he 
could  get  his  discharge  and  flee  back  to  the  fouled 
straw,  the  crunch  of  the  corn  in  the  mangers,   the 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  289 

breath  and  sighing  of  heavy  beasts  in  the  night,  the 
stench  and  the  buzzing  flies. 

•'  Wise  child  that  knows  its  own  schlummerlied," 
Schweinfurth  would  babble  back;  "  '  Schlaf,  Kindlein, 
schlaf,'  say  the  flies,  and  John  knoweth  their  voice  as 
your  ship-boy  in  Shakespeare  hears  the  imperious 
surge  saying,  '  Hushaby."  "  Schweinfurth  was  maud- 
lin with  doating  on  his  own  treasure;  he  spilt  his  con- 
tentment all  round  him,  letting  it  fall,  like  the 
warmth  of  a  sun,  on  the  bad  and  the  good. 

Aubrey  could  see  what  he  himself  was  to  this 
beatified  soul — some  little  figure  intent  on  trifles,  its 
fugitive  interests,  its  chatter  of  Johns  and  stable  flies; 
a  small-talker,  living  for  transiencies,  he  had  to  be 
humored;  small  beer  must  be  served  out  to  keep  him 
in  play,  in  harmless  play,  on  the  outer  steps  of  the 
door  of  the  mansion  of  the  intelligent.  Aubrey  could 
see  it  all  with  a  new  clearness,  frigid,  transparent, 
incredible,  like  an  old  view  seen  again  through 
strangely  washed  air  on  a  rare,  ninless  evening  after 
rain.  It  would  have  made  him  drunk  once,  with  de- 
light; now  he  was  cold,  and  that  was  strangest  of  all; 
not  anguished,  but  just  cold,  with  opened  eyes.  He 
wondered,  was  it  like  that  to  be  old — to  see  so  much 
more  and  mind  it  so  little;  to  find  your  old  impedi- 
ments gone,  and  nothing  beyond  them?  He  set  his 
voice  going  again.  It  ran  on,  undismayed  by  any  thrill 
of  wonder,  as  if  all  talk  were  of  things  he  had  long 
ago  seen  out  to  their  ends.  "  I  that  used  to  be  shy  as  a 
sheep !  "  he  thought;  speech,  that  used  to  come  in  short 
spurts,  precarious  rushes,  apt  to  be  checked,  he  could 


200  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

not  tell  when,  by  a  suddenly  collaring  sense  of  the 
staggering  moment  of  what  he  was  speaking  about — 
speech  was  effortless  now,  and  his  own  voice  sounded 
to  him  like  bells  tinkling  outside;  the  airy,  shrewd  stuff 
that  he  gave  off  was  heard  by  himself  as  if  it  came 
from  old  colonels  or  dowagers.  And  people  had  tried 
to  describe  calamities !  Could  they  have  ever  felt 
them?  Or  was  he  somehow  deficient?  No  tempest 
of  grief  was  raging  in  him;  he  could  not  say  that  grief 
gnawed  him,  or  that  he  was  stunned.  What  he  was 
bearing  was  not  like  what  he  had  ever  read  of  a  man 
who  had  lost  what  he  loved,  or  his  honor ;  his  was  no 
taxing  pang  or  high  trial  or  call  for  sore  effort;  only 
an  unthrilled,  sinister  ease ;  nothing  mattered,  nothing 
resisted,  no  wheel  in  him  all  found  good  rough  ground 
to  bite  on;  the  thing  that  was  gone  was  the  push  of  the 
water  back  on  the  oar,  the  exacting,  enchanting  chal- 
lenge of  hardness  and  hazard  in  all  the  things  that  had 
ever  had  to  be  done. 

They  were  now  on  Nick-Ross;  mention  of  New- 
man had  led  to  him.  Nick-Ross  should  have  been 
here,  Aubrey  vowed,  to  meet  Schweinfurth.  Yes,  he 
remembered;  Nick-Ross  was  just  off  to  East  Africa. 

"He  also?    Exploring?" 

"  Only  big  game,  I'm  afraid.  He's  a  soldier,  or 
was." 

Schweinfurth  pondered.  He  sought  the  connection, 
"A  soldier,  then,  not  of  profession?    A  voluntary? ': 

"  No,  no!    In  the  Grenadier  Guards." 

Schweinfurth  wondered  again  till  Aubrey  brought 
a  seeming  solution.    "  He's  out  of  them  now." 


THE  MORNINGS  WAR  291 

"So?"  The  German's  brow  cleared.  'In  your 
army,  too,  is  no  room  for  idlers?  " 

"Cashiered?  Dear  no.  Nick-Ross  came  into  his 
kingdom,  his  thirty  thousand  acres.  His  father  had 
died.  And  so  farewell,  as  your  German  national  poet, 
your  Shakespeare,  says,  to  the  great  wars  and  the 
tented  field." 

"He  is  how  old?" 

"  Say,  twenty-five." 

"And  after?'" 

"  He'll  marry;  be  serious;  perhaps  hunt  a  pack  of 
his  own;  tell  stories  of  camp  and  court  after  dinner — 
he  was  a  Queen's  page  once." 

"Before  being  a  soldier?"  Schweinfurth  was  at- 
tending. 

"  Yes.     When  a  boy." 

"  It  is  a  parallel !  "  Schweinfurth's  eyes  sparkled. 
He  rose.  "  May  I  read  you  five  words  only,  out  of  my 
book?  A  book  not  yet  out.  On  the  Malantu."  He 
made  for  the  door.  Then  he  remembered.  :  You  will 
keep  guard?  '  He  nodded  his  head  towards  the  arrow 
and  hastened  out. 

Aubrey  sat  still  for  a  moment  and  then  went  to  the 
arrow,  took  it  out  of  the  case  and  looked  at  it  nar- 
rowly. No  thrill  there,  either;  the  tiny  passport  to 
Lethe,  easy  and  sure  as  Cleopatra's  asp,  stirred  noth- 
ing in  him.  He  put  it  down  listlessly.  Schweinfurth 
was  back;  he  came  in  engrossed  in  a  roll  of  proofs;  he 
was  a  man  of  successive  absorptions,  each  of  them  ab- 
solute. Smoothing  a  long  slip  of  paper  out,  he  read 
aloud  with  zest: — 


292  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

The  Malantu.  The  men  of  the  ruling  class  serve 
as  pages  in  youth.  From  eighteen  to  twenty-five  they 
are  classed  as  Elmorans,  or  warriors.  After  that  age 
they  marry,  settle  down,  and  live  on  their  lands,  which 
are  tilled  for  them  by  villains  or  landless  churls.  The 
Elmorans  spend  the  rest  of  their  lives  in  hunting. 
They  live  chiefly  on  meat,  they  do  not  drink  water, 
and  it  is  a  point  of  honor  with  them  not  to  work.' 
The  reader  looked  up,  happy.  "  A  true  analogy,  sur- 
vival perhaps.  I  will  go  and  make  a  note."  The  new 
interest  engaged  the  whole  man;  as  he  went  out  he  did 
not  so  much  as  look  at  the  arrow,  his  cynosure,  of  ten 
minutes  ago,  left  lying  exposed  by  the  listless  Aubrey, 
nor  hear  two  nearing  sounds,  in  the  outer  darkness — 
the  brisk  tap,  tap  of  Newman's  two  sticks  as  he 
stumped  up  the  flagged  garden-path,  and  the  lilt  of  a 
music-hall  song  of  the  day,  knowing,  leering  and  cruel : 

"  They  may  wriggle,  they  may  struggle,  but  I've  got  'em  in  my 
eye—" 

The  tune  gave  a  stagger,  was  lost  for  a  few  bars,  and 
then  shambled  on — 

" — I   shall  have  'em  by  and  by." 

The  tapping  stopped;  in  the  stillness  Aubrey  could 
hear  a  hand  wandering,  exploring,  over  the  outside  of 
the  door,  seeking  the  latch.  Holding  his  breath, 
Aubrey  listened,  and  sickening  thoughts  came.  Cruel, 
gross  hand,  some  time  it  might  wander  like  that,  in 
the  dark,  besotted,  cunning,  deflowering,  greedy,  over 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  293 

the  face  of  a  bride,  over — oh,  hell!  Imagination,  too, 
had  turned  fluent;  it  raced,  to  no  good,  like  a  screw 
out  of  water;  its  foul  visions  were  physical,  full,  cir- 
cumstantial; nothing  would  stop  them — except,  per- 
haps, action.  He  jumped  up  and  opened  the 
door. 

Newman  stood  black  against  a  young  moonrise,  a 
figure  precariously  planted  now  that  the  door,  its 
third  prop,  was  withdrawn.  Such  was  the  tea  of 
Nick-Ross.  But  Newman  carried  liquor  with  skill 
and  a  will.  His  tongue  was  almost  itself;  when  he 
sat,  his  legs  need  not  count;  the  one  Bacchic  influence 
not  to  be  mastered  was  preoccupation,  whole-souled 
and  indignant,  with  a  small  wrong. 

"  'Straor'n'ry  chap,  Nick-Ross!'  he  opened  on  it 
at  once.  "  Been  out  to  tea  with  Nick-Ross.  Thought 
I'd  ask  his  advice.  Thought  Nick  was  a  man  of  the 
world.  Would  you  b'lieve  it — hadn't  a  needle  in  the 
whole  house?     Man  o'  th'  world!" 

For  a  moment  or  two  he  scorned  and  mourned 
silently.  Then,  "You  got  a  needle,  now?"  Aubrey 
was  suddenly  asked,  as  if  to  give  the  world  one  more 
chance  of  amending  itself. 

"  No." 

"Pin,  even?  Not  a  tin  pin,  mind.  Gol',  silver, 
some  presh's  metal  ?  " 

"  No." 

Newman  stared,  at  the  other's  curtness.  '  Can't  be 
plagued,  can't  you,  t'help  fellow-creature?  Oh,  you're 
all  right.  Your  ship's  come  in.  Y\  nat's  human  suf- 
ferin'   to  you   now   you're   famous  and  got   pots  of 


294  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

money,  and  boards  np  with  '  House  Full  '  all  over  the 
place!  No  symp'thy,  no  'maj 'nation — that's  what's 
th'  matter  'th  you — don't  puchself  in's  place."  New- 
man was  fumblingly  loosening  his  left  cuff.  "  What'd 
you  say  " — he  rolled  back  coat  and  shirt  sleeve,  ex- 
posing a  large  "  I  "  tattooed  on  that  forearm — "  what'd 
you  say  to  having  a  blame  thing  like  that  on  your  arm, 
and  you  going  courting?  ':  Newman's  aggrieved  tone 
seemed  to  put  Heaven  itself  in  the  dock,  with  Aubrey. 
''  And  just  when  you're  moving  the  one  letter  on  and 
wanting  a  '  J,'  next  thing  in  your  game." 

"Game?" 

"  Goo'  strong  un  too.  Just  when  you're  pressing 
the  beauty,  hitch  up  your  cuff  a  bit,  show  her  the  one 
loved  letter,  an'  blushin'ly  own  your  folly.  '  You — 
that  is.  Been  done  two  years.'  I  tell  you  it  fetches 
'em — small  things  like  that.  Tact — sort  o'  chivalry. 
Understan'  now?  " 

"What?"      Newman  had  said  "J."    "J!" 
That  this  '  I  '  has  bloomin'  well  got  to  turn  into 
a  'J.'" 

'How?':  It  was  not  a  question  really;  more  like 
an  outstretched  arm,  or  raised  stick,  to  keep  an  alight- 
ing vulture  off  for  a  moment  more  from  the  eyes  of 
one  lying  disabled. 

'  How?  Grow  a  tail.  Don'  tadpoles  do  it?  Drop 
'em  too,  when  they're  done  with;  sensible  beasts. 
Something  to  last  a  fair  fortnight — that's  all  I  want. 
No  more  everlasting  debentures  for  me,  way  these 
professionals  let  you  in  when  they  tattoo  you — fast 
dyes  and  every  blame  hole  they  prick  like  the  shaft  of 


THE  MORNINGS  WAR  295 

a  pit.     No,  a  nice  drop  of  ink,  a  clean  needle  an' — 
got  s'  much's  a  penknife?" 
'  "No." 

Newman  drunkenly  pondered  his  way  to  a  chuckling 
guffaw.  "  Gorlummy,  I  might  've  borrowed  a  needle 
from  Miss  June  herself." 

"She!"  He  had  known  it  was  coming  and  yet 
had  refused  to  know,  or  to  figure  June  pestered  by 
bestial  solicitations. 

Newman  stared.     "What's  wrong  with  her?': 

"Wrong?" 

Newman  seemed  quite  anxious.  '  Looks  all  right, 
doesn't  she?  Quite  decent  people — father's  side  any- 
how? 'Course  I  know,"  he  added  concessively,  "  she's 
got  her  head  bunged  up  with  religion — philanthropy, 
that  sort  of  muck — but  it'll  come  right  when  a  chap 
puts  it  straight  to  her — chap  with  a  right  to.  Why, 
it's  the  making  of  any  woman  that's  all  right  at  bot- 
tom— marriage  is."  Reassurance  came  in  like  a  glow 
with  the  bracing  exercise  of  shedding  this  wisdom. 
Newman's  eyes  ranged  round  him  complacently. 
"  Lummy,  I've  got  it,"  he  suddenly  said,  and  strug- 
gled on  to  his  feet.  The  razor-bright  point  of  the 
arrow  had  caught  the  agitated  gleam  of  a  candle 
blown  askew,  perhaps  by  the  breath  of  this  elo- 
quence. 

Aubrey  watched  silently,  not  choosing  between 
silence  and  speech,  nor  feeling  that  there  was  a  choice. 
He  looked  on  as  you  look  at  history  when  it  is  writ- 
ten, at  some  old  working  of  fate,  or  the  linked  proc- 
esses of  suns,  far  out  of  your  governance. 


296  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

'Kim  up."  Newman  lifted  the  arrow.  "What- 
ever dam  surgeon  has  been  in  the  place?  Praise  be! 
'Sprov'dence;  same  old  Godsprov'dence.  Ram  in  the 
bushes  f'r  Abr'am;  food  for  young  ravens;  catering 
done  for  sparrows;  lancets  free  f'r  any  one  wants 
'em."  He  held  the  steel  to  the  light  with  a  tipsy  aping 
of  circumspection  and  once  more  certified  "  'Sprov'- 
dence." 

Newman  had  often  said  to  friends,  "  When  I  see  a 
thing  has  got  to  be  done,  I  do  it."  Laying  the  arrow 
down  on  the  table,  its  point  punctiliously  clear  of  all 
possible  dirt,  the  man  of  action  took  off  his  coat  and 
turned  back  his  left  sleeve,  right  to  the  elbow. 

The  "  I  "  stood  out  monumental,  blue-black  on  the 
white  expanse  of  the  plump  cripple's  womanish  arm. 
To  Newman  himself,  or  the  maundering  liquor  in  him, 
the  letter  seemed,  as  monuments  do,  to  spring  half- 
recollections  that  had  to  be  paused  for  and  made  clear 
and  whole.  "Ivy — that's  it.  Rum  little  girl,  Ivy; 
long  hair  down  her  back.  I  was  at  Harrow  then.  Ivy 
— a  rum  little  beast — she  went  it  blind  afterwards, 
somebody  told  me.     They  do." 

"  With  a  start,"  Aubrey  let  go  his  held  breath 
enough  to  put  in;  his  eyes  had  ceased  from  even  the 
common  blinking  of  nature;  they  had  to  miss  nothing 
now. 

Newman  had  picked  up  the  arrow.  He  maundered 
on,  with  it  upheld  in  his  right  hand,  his  eyes  still  on 
the  "  I,"  the  remembrancer.  "  Weird  bit  of  luck — it 
did  twice.  'Sprov'dence  again.  Ida — rotten  name 
Ida.     Had  her  to  mind  some  roses  I  grew  in  a  little 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  297 

garden  at  Kidlington — little  house  in  the  garden,  of 
course — my  last  year  at  Oxford — '  Ga-rrr-er  ye  roses 
while  ye  may  ' — decentish  song  she'd  sing  in  the  even- 
ings— Midsu-rr-er  evenings — moths  coining  blunder- 
ing in  at  th'  window,  butting  at  everything.  Silly  rot, 
really.  Tebb — remember  Tebb? — man  we  called 
Splosh — took  on  the  small  holding  afterwards — roses 
and  Ida — everything.  All  silly  rot,  if  y'ask  me.  Gem- 
married  and  put  down  the  tandem,  that's  what  I  say; 
go  about  'n  a  carriage  all  over  cushions  an'  tell  the 
man  drive  you  dam  slow,  and  a  little  brandy  on  the 
front  seat,  case  'v  acc'dent." 

Tongue  and  limbs  shared  a  finite  measure  of 
soberness;  they  took  turns  at  its  use.  As  Newman's 
voice  trailed  away  into  drivel,  his  right  hand  took  a 
good  grasp  of  the  arrow-.  Pen-like,  it  impended  over 
the  "  I." 

"Ink  ready?"  said  Newman.  "Oh.  blast  the 
cuff!  '  It  had  slipped  down  again  till  it  half  hid  the 
letter.  "Prop  it  up,  will  you?'  He  held  out  the 
arm. 

"  No."  The  reply  was  instant;  it  was  not  willed  or 
chosen;  Aubrey  himself  wondered  at  it  and  at  the 
hoarse  voice;  the  whole  inside  of  his  mouth  must  be 
dry;  he  must  have  been  gaping  a  long  time  at  the  drift 
that  was  carrying  this  beast  to  extinction. 

"  Manners,  m'young  friend,  manners,"  Newman 
corrected  blandly. 

Aubrey  had  wet  his  tongue  now.  "  Put  it  down," 
he  commanded  roughly. 

Newman  mimicked  a  nurse  who  must  make  a  rude 


298  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

child  say  its  "  Please."  "  PI  .  .  .,  pi  .  .  .,"  he 
prompted. 

'  Put  it  down,  blast  you."  Aubrey  rose,  furious 
and  red.  he  could  not  tell  why.  He  wished  Newman 
dead;  vermin  ought  to  be  dead;  it  was  unreason  to 
keep  them  crawling  about  and  stinking  and  stinging; 
it  was  not  fair  to  people;  it  was  not  loyal  to  June, 
whom  this  pest  was  to  plague.  But  it  was  like  lust; 
the  impulse  bore  down  all  reason.  He  jumped  up  and 
stood  over  Newman,  bullying. 

Newman  was  not  a  coward.  And  he  was  drunk. 
He  shrugged,  tucked  up  the  sleeve  unhelped,  and  ad- 
dressed himself  to  the  work.  The  arrow's  point 
hovered  over  the  "  I,"  picking  its  first  place  to  puncture 
the  skin.  It  had  picked,  but  not  touched  it,  when 
Aubrey  reached  down,  caught  hold  of  the  arrow  be- 
tween Newman's  hand  and  the  tip,  and  snatched  it 
away.  But  not  easily.  At  the  assault  Newman's 
fingers  had  tightened  their  grip;  the  smooth  shaft  had 
slipped  through  Aubrey's  hand  till  the  barb  checked 
the  slipping.  The  barb  pierced  the  edge  of  his 
clenched  palm  and  tore  its  way  through  skin  and  flesh 
as  he  dragged. 

Aubrey  looked  at  the  tear,  with  his  rage  suddenly 
gone.  He  must  try  to  comprehend  quickly,  quickly; 
that  was  all  he  could  feel;  he  must  comprehend  the 
things  to  be  done  in  the  hour  at  most,  half  hour  per- 
haps, that  could  now  be  heard  running  down  head- 
long in  hurrying,  creaking  ticks  of  the  farmer's  cheap 
clock.  Had  the  clock  bolted?  Oh,  no,  of  course,  it 
was  his  head  that  he  had  to  keep. 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  299 

Newman  was  spluttering,  outraged.  He  sought  an 
oath  big  enough.    "  Well,  I  am —  " 

"You  are.  You'd  not  be  if  this — "  Aubrey  held 
out  the  arrow  in  his  whole  hand.  Some  menial  faculty 
in  him  came  to  his  mind's  kitchen  door  to  keep  New- 
man in  play. 

'You  don't  mean — !'  Newman  gaped  at  the 
arrow,  his  pink  face  turning  to  tallow. 

4  Poison :  good,  quick  stuff — an  hour  or  so." 

'By  God,  what  a  let  off!  Hullo,  though,  it's  run 
into  you.  Suck  it,  man.  I'll  drive  like  hell  for  a 
doctor." 

'  No.  He'd  make  the  right  faces — that's  all — and 
use  up  the  time." 

Newman  calmed.  'What  made  you  do  it?'  he 
asked. 

'  The  deuce  knows."  Aubrey  had  suddenly  put 
himself  into  motion,  as  if  a  thought  that  changed 
much  had  occurred.  He  had  let  the  arrow  fall  on  the 
table,  had  run  for  his  boots  and  was  head  down,  drag- 
ging one  on. 

'  If  you'd  told  me — "  The  self-exculpatory  im- 
pulse was  growing  and  groping  in  Newman.  "  You 
just  swore  and  grabbed  at  it." 

'Yes,  yes;  most  hasty,"  said  Aubrey,  knotting  the 
last  lace.  The  words  meant,  "  Oh,  don't  bother. 
Take  what  you  want."  'Good-night!'  he  called 
back  from  the  door,  more  friendlily. 

"Going  out!    Where  the—?" 

"Good-night!" 

The  click  of  the  gate  at  the  garden's  end  followed 


300  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

quick.  The  fellow  was  running.  Newman  flopped 
into  a  chair,  bewildered.  "  'Straor'nary  chap,"  he 
mused  quite  aloud. 

The  door  was  flung  open  next  moment,  and  Browne 
plunged  in,  breathless.  "  Forgot  the  blamed  thing," 
he  panted.  The  arrow  still  lay  on  the  table;  he  hur- 
ried it  into  its  case,  turned  the  key  and  threw  the  key 
over  to  Newman.  '  Give  it  the  German,"  said 
Browne;  "  the  beastly  thing's  his.  It  may  be  spoilt — 
tell  him  I'm  sorry — I  can't  wait." 

He  bolted  out  into  the  night  again.  Newman,  who 
had  half  risen,  collapsed  again  into  his  chair.  "  Mos' 
'straor'n'ry  chap,"  he  repeated,  "  I  ever  saw  in  my 
life." 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

"Has  this  been  thus  before? 

And   shall   not  thus   time's  eddying  flight 
Still  with  our  lives  our  love  restore 

In  death's  despite, 
And  day  and  night  yield  one  delight  once  more?" 

D.   G.   Rossetti. 

FROM  the  hole  where  the  farm  lay  the  lane  ran 
nearly  level  awhile;  then  it  made  the  rest  of  the 
rise  in  one  sharp  slope ;  from  its  top  to  the  End  House 
all  would  be  easy.  Aubrey  ran  hard ;  the  false  start 
had  wasted  a  minute  or  more.  He  planned  hard,  as  he 
ran ;  he  would  rush  the  slope,  lest  there  should  be  any 
steepness  left  when  his  legs  began  to  give;  on  the  flat 
he  might  get  along,  even  then,  somehow. 

As  the  lane  rose  it  cut  into  gravel  and  sand — lane 
and  watercourse  too,  for  three  centuries'  traffic  and 
rain.  Over  his  head  he  saw  on  each  side  bare  roots  of 
the  hazel  hedges  that  arched  the  way  leafily,  turning  its 
sandy  trough  into  a  tunnel,  dark  now,  though  the  moon 
could  be  seen  caught  in  a  tangle  of  boughs.  He  stum- 
bled on,  sweating  and  losing  breath;  each  hundred 
yards  was  great  gain;  five  minutes  more  to  the  top  of 
the  hill ;  then  another  five ;  that  would  be  all.  En- 
chanting, the  grip  of  clenched  thighs  on  a  slope,  the 
clip  of  the  knees  as  they  bow  to  take  hold;  always  en- 
chanting to  him,  not  merely  now,  when  he  might  make 

301 


302  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

too  much  of  what  he  was  losing,  as  people  do.  But 
now,  how  enchanting!  He  could  feel  that,  and  smell 
the  hazels  and  sand  deeply  and  slowly,  and  think  about 
trivial  humors — how  he  would  stagger  the  butler  by 
bursting  in,  hatless  and  hot ;  and  yet  the  whole  time  his 
mind  was  on  June,  not  thinking  but  just  envisioning 
her,  sinking  all  sequent  thought  in  mere  ecstatic,  mo- 
tionless sense  of  the  aspect,  melting  and  kind,  that  he 
was  again  free  to  call  into  her  face,  could  he  but  reach 
her.  Death  was  coming,  but  then  death  was  over,  too, 
in  a  way;  passionate  life  and  the  passionate  love  of 
life,  which  is  life's  heart,  were  astir  and  warm  after 
that  Ice  Age  of  numbness  too  dead  to  be  even  pain. 

He  was  nearly  up  the  hill  now;  the  right  and  left 
sky-lines  of  banked  sand  were  dipping  down  to  him, 
hoisting  the  moon  up  the  sky.  Six  yards  more,  and  the 
flat  stretch  would  begin.  But  a  strange  thing  happened. 
He  felt  as  if  his  body  were  not  upright,  but  leant  back, 
at  right  angles  to  the  lane's  slope.  Why,  he  might 
topple  backwards,  he  carefully  thought.  He  forced  his 
head  and  shoulders  well  forward,  and  instantly  fell  on 
his  hands  and  one  knee,  scraping  away  cloth  and  skin. 
He  scrambled  up,  but  nothing  would  balance  now ;  he 
had  to  fall  either  forward  or  back.  A  field  gate  was 
ahead  on  his  left,  six  yards  on,  the  coveted  six  yards. 
He  made  a  falling  rush  at  it,  threw  his  arms  over  the 
top  bar  and  hung  by  them  rather  than  stood  on  his 
failing  feet. 

So  it  was  coming,  but  not  sheer  disablement  yet. 
His  mind  was  unclouded ;  more  cloudless,  perhaps,  than 
ever  before;  all  powers  were  its,  in  new  strength — 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  303 

vision  and  passion  and  swiftly-building  reason — as 
though  at  the  opened  door  of  endless  night  the  quick 
spirit  bent  itself  up  to  show  what  it  might  have  done 
yet  in  the  sun.  His  arms  were  sound  too,  and  his  legs 
to  the  knees.  Walking  was  done  with,  but  there  was 
all  fours;  he  dropped  to  the  ground  and  set  off  in- 
stantly, scuttling  on  hands  and  knees,  half  in  the  sandy 
dust  and  half  on  the  wayside  grass  where  the  raw  knee 
flinched  less.  All  the  time  he  was  calculating  closely; 
twenty  more  minutes  at  this  pace  should  do  it ;  no,  say 
twenty-five,  for  his  legs  began  to  drag  like  a  fly's  that 
have  been  in  the  cream.  Still,  his  arms  held  out  well ; 
that  was  fine ;  he  shuffled  on,  almost  elate,  till  a  wrist 
gave  way  and  let  him  down,  rolling  first  on  his  right 
side  and  then  on  his  back  in  the  white  dust.  He  wrig- 
gled to  rise,  but  the  other  arm  gave,  and  both  legs.  He 
tried  to  roll  over  and  over,  barrel-like,  in  the  direction 
he  wanted  to  go,  but  he  found  that,  even  for  this,  live 
limbs  were  needed,  to  make  the  trunk  turn,  and  he  was 
a  torso  now,  tied  to  dead  weights. 

He  lay  still  in  the  dust,  working  it  out.  Three  hun- 
dred yards  still  to  the  house;  two  hundred  and  fifty 
perhaps.  Some  one  might  pass  in  the  moments  left. 
It  would  be  miracle,  almost;  the  hamlets  were  all 
asleep;  still,  it  was  only  just  nine,  and  a  moon-flooded 
night ;  some  child  might  be  ill  and  a  father  go  that  way 
for  the  doctor.  Some  one  might  pass.  But,  were  it  a 
winged  Mercury,  could  it  bring  June  word  in  time? 
And  would  she  come  ?  Oh,  yes,  she  would  come ;  that 
was  safe;  she  had  all  the  proud  generosities.  He  must 
be  ready  if  any  one  passed;  he  must  have  his  message 


304.  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

framed,  and  also  his  means  to  make  a  passer  believe 
that  he  was  not  drunk  or  an  idiot,  to  lie  in  the 
dirt  and  bid  ladies  come  to  him.  That  done,  he 
listened  and  listened,  his  ears  becoming  creative  and 
modeling  dim  shapes  of  the  craved  sounds  of  footsteps 
and  voices  out  of  the  chaos  of  infinitesimal  whispers 
that  make  up  the  breath  of  the  earth  in  its  sleep;  then 
back,  with  a  rush,  came  the  thought  of  his  hoarded 
minutes  pouring  themselves  out  to  waste,  and  he  was 
convulsed  with  another  effort  to  move,  like  a  weaken- 
ing horse  that  is  lashed  again  after  its  stronger  strug- 
gles to  move  the  cart  have  all  failed.  He  strained  till 
cramp  came  and  sweat  matted  his  hair  and  made  it 
feel  heavy;  drops  of  sweat  crawled  on  his  face  and 
tickled  like  flies. 

But  the  miracle  happened — as  if  you  were  starving 
and  wished,  without  hope,  that  a  gold  coin  might  lie 
in  the  mud  at  your  feet — and  it  lay  there.  The  spasm 
was  over ;  the  ears  were  again  at  their  post,  and  lo ! 
while  they  had  been  away,  sharing  the  body's  agony, 
sounds  had  found  shape  that  did  not  need  conjuring — 
oncoming  steps  that  rustled  clear  in  the  dust ;  and  then 
breathing,  shallow  and  quick;  and  another  rustle, 
rhythmic  and,  as  he  thought,  quickening — the  rub  of 
two  parts  of  a  dress  on  a  woman  walking  and  then 
walking  faster  and  then  running:  some  country  girl, 
no  doubt,  scared  at  her  night  walk  and  wanting  to  get 
it  done.  Would  she  faint  when  he  spoke?  To  guard 
against  that  waste  of  time  he  set  about  crooning,  the 
tuneless  best  way  he  could,  some  words  of  the  first 
song  he  could  think  of  : 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR         305 

"Oh,  you'll  tak'  the  high  road  and  I'll  tak'  the  low  road, 
And  I'll  be  in  Scotland  before  you." 

He  heard  her  breath  stop,  her  step  check ;  no  cry, 
though;  and  then  she  came  on  unfalteringly.  '  Good 
one !  "  he  thought,  and  hummed  away : 

"  — me  and   my  true  love  will  never  meet  again 
By  the  bonnie,  bonnie  banks  of  Loch  Lomond." 

She  was  near;  she  must  see  him  now;  he  would 
speak  tranquilly,  say  he  was  suddenly  ill,  beg  her  to  run 
very  fast  to  the  End  House,  ask  to  see  Miss  Hather- 
sage  instantly,  tell  her — 

Held  down  on  his  back  he  saw  little  but  sky  and 
trees ;  no  road  at  all.  The  woman  came  on  in  shadow 
at  first;  she  heaved  into  sight  an  undelimited  white- 
ness, scaling  the  dome  of  his  visible  world  as  a  white 
cloud  sails  up  a  night  sky.  Then  the  moon  fell  on  this 
cloud,  a  white  shaft  on  a  white  face;  as  she  ran  to  the 
voice  and  stooped  down  to  him  quickly,  all  of  him  that 
had  longed  for  her  coming,  his  love  and  regret  and 
pity,  cried  out  her  name  over  and  over,  embracing  it. 
"  Oh,  June,  June,  June!  " 

On  her  knees,  with  one  hand  under  his  head  and  the 
other  pushing  back  his  wet  hair,  she  did  not  speak 
words,  and  yet  was  not  silent;  a  murmurous  haze  or 
audible  breath  of  tenderness  shed  itself  on  him.  Help- 
lessness made  him,  for  that  moment,  hers  utterly;  she 
had  a  rending  joy  like  a  mother  whose  wild  son  is 
carried  home  to  her  ill  and  as  full  of  needs  again  as 
the  infant  she  once  nursed.  She  could  not  even  ask 
anything  yet;  she  only  sat  in  the  dust  with  his  head  in 


306  THE  MORNINGS  WAR 

her  lap,  between  her  hands,  pouring  about  him  that 
mist  of  caressing  low  sound. 

"  I  was  lying,"  he  said;  "  I  do  love  you." 

"  Ah !  "  she  said,  strangely,  as  if  she  had  known. 
'  I  kept  loving  you  more  and  more,  all  that  time  I 
was  lying." 

"  Dear,  kind  one." 

"  We  had  been  caught  in  a  trap ;  we  had  walked 
right  into  it;  we  couldn't  know;  but  it's  all  right  now; 
it's  all  right." 

Yes,  yes !  "  she  broke  out  in  triumph. 

'  I  thought  about  ways  to  get  us  both  out  of  the 
trap,  together — to  break  the  thing.  There  wasn't  one 
that  I  could  see  anywhere.  Then  I  went  mad  and  tried 
just  to  cut  you  out  of  it,  hacking  you  like  a  brute,  any- 
how!" 

"No,  no!" 

"  Yes.    I  can't  tell  you  it  all—" 

"  I  know  it  all." 

"You?" 

'  My  dear  love,  my  cousin."  The  shunned  word 
came,  playful  and  tender.  He  took  it  in  dazedly,  try- 
ing to  grasp  the  changed  world  that  it  made.  The  dead 
wall  was  down;  it  had  never  been  there;  he  had  lost 
her  for  nothing;  he  had  played  traitor  for  nothing; 
in  his  crazed  fume  at  the  farm  he  had  thrown  away  life 
for  a  striker's  whim  of  not  saying  a  plain  word  in  time. 
Oh,  long  list  of  his  blindnesses! 

June  was  speaking.  "  It  was  that  letter — my  Aunt 
Kate's.  I  opened  it  when  you  were  gone.  Then  I 
guessed — no,  I  had  a  faint,  sneaking  hope — that  this 


THE  MORNINGS  WAR  307 

might  be  why  you  were  giving  me  up — that  you  wanted 
to  let  me  off,  oh,  my  dear  blind  one !  Wasn't  I  shame- 
less?— you'd  kicked  me  away,  and  I  let  myself  cling  to 
your  boots,  in  my  thoughts.  But  I  couldn't  go  to  you 
and  throw  myself  at  you  and  say,  '  I'm  your  cousin.  I 
know,  but  still  will  you  take  me  ?  '  I  wasn't  trying  to 
see  you.  I  couldn't  stay  in — that  was  all.  I  wanted 
to  look  at  the  house  where  you  were,  from  a  little  way 
off — there  are  trees  on  a  knoll — I  could  not  have  been 
seen,  and  then  I'd  have  stolen  away.  And  there  were 
you,  coming  to  me,  all  the  time,  and  it's  all  right  in  the 
end."  She  was  exalted;  she  threw  up  her  head  to 
shake  back  a  tress  and  he  caught  in  her  moon-filled  eyes 
a  light  wild  and  yet  steadfast,  a  fit  fire-signal  of  em- 
barkation on  love  the  adventure,  the  taxer  of  staunch- 
ness, the  violent  rearranger  of  lives.  So  must  his 
mother  have  looked,  on  that  other  night. 

She  found  earth  again.  "  What  a  brute  I  am. 
You're  ill — you're  hurt  in  some  dreadful  way — oh, 
what  is  it?— and  I  doing  nothing.  I'll  run,  I'll  bring 
people  to  carry  you."     She  moved,  to  rise. 

He  pressed  his  head  down  on  her  lap  detainingly. 
"  Darling,  I'm  dying,"  he  said,  sorrowfully,  feeling  it 
hard  to  have  no  arms  to  hold  her  in,  while  the  words 

fell. 

She  did  not  cry  out,  or  flinch.  All  he  felt  was  a 
tightened  clasp  of  her  hands  under  and  over  his  head, 
as  if  they  had  felt  it  slipping  away.  She  had  con- 
tracted a  little,  the  whole  of  her  body,  and  then  be- 
come taut,  as  does  an  attacked  army  whose  outposts 
draw  in  and  stand  fast. 


308  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

He  turned  his  head  this  way  and  that  between  her 
hands,  so  as  to  rub  against  them  softly,  a  kind  of  em- 
brace. '  A  fluke,"  he  said,  "  a  scratch,  an  accident  at 
the  farm  with  that  arrow." 

"  You  didn't— !" 

'  No,  no.  I've  loved  living — even  then  ?  You 
understand?  Newman  had  it.  I  snatched  it  away  in 
a  temper  and  so  I  got  scratched." 

"Where?     Show  me,  quickly." 

He  could  not  point  to  it;  the  outworks  of  life  were 
all  down;  only  the  captaining  brain,  cut  off  and  in- 
vested, held  out  still  in  its  citadel.  "  Don't  look  for  it, 
June;  the  poison's  gone  far  from  it  now;  it  may  be 
flowing  into  my  brain  or  my  heart ;  let  us  love  out  our 
minutes."  He  mustered  the  scattered  parts  of  a 
thought.  "  You  didn't  think  of  me  the  way  the  priest 
did?" 

"  Oh,  no,  no." 

"  I  was  afraid.  I  thought  of  you  at  that  party — the 
way  you  looked  when  Mrs.  Roads  spoke." 

"  I  was  angry — I  wasn't  religious.  I  had  been 
shaken  and  doubting  for  ever  so  long.  It  made  me  all 
the  more  furious  when  people  who  didn't  believe  were 
ribald  or  pert — it's  so  holy  and  lovely  whenever  any 
one  does  believe  anything  really,  and  stands  by  it. 
Sometimes  I  wavered  back,  when  I  was  tired  or  weak. 
That  morning  I  wrote  to  you — " 

"  Yes,  my  dear,  dear."  He  did  not  need  to  recall 
the  words  of  her  letter :  "  I  prayed  to  Mary,  Mother  of 
God."  They  had  burnt  into  him.  Without  his  mis- 
reading of  them  he  might  not  have  blundered  into  all 


THE  MORNINGS  WAR  309 

this.  "You  wouldn't  have  minded  the  shame?'  he 
asked.  "  Cousin  and  wife  of  the  son  of  a  runaway 
priest." 

"And  at  Brabburn?'1     She  tenderly  mocked. 

Some  pang  traversed  his  body,  enforcing  a  moment 
of  silence  and  closed  eyes.  She  bent  down,  raising  his 
head  a  little.  They  stayed  so,  till  her  lips  felt  his  eye- 
lashes lifting. 

"  You  kissed  me,"  he  murmured,  musing  in  paradise. 

"  You  fainted?    You  are  in  pain?  " 

"  Pain  !  No !  You  kissed  me.  Isn't  the  mill  some- 
where here?  ':  The  mind,  uneasy  in  its  shaken  house, 
began  to  go  hither  and  thither. 

"There!  There!"  She  lifted  his  head  and 
pointed. 

From  the  dark  swell  of  the  Hurtwood  the  sails  rose, 
dark  too,  against  a  sky  white  with  strewn  stars;  the 
ledge  where  they  had  first  kissed  was  drawn  black  and 
sharp  on  that  ground.  He  was  shaken;  he  found  dying 
hard,  and  she  lost  hold  of  her  voice  and  tears  and  had 
to  be  silent  above  his  head,  hiding  a  face  crumpled  like 
a  child's  with  pain,  while  the  defrauded  love  in  each  of 
them  beat,  alone  and  in  secret,  on  the  unhearing  bars 
of  their  cage. 

So  they  remained,  held  apart  by  the  resolution  of 
each  not  to  break  the  strength  of  the  other,  till  Aubrey 
had  suffered  the  whole  of  conscious  death,  to  the  last 
sting  it  can  plant  in  life-loving  tissue.  He  had  sunk 
choking  slowly  through  gray  water  that  sang  in  the  ear 
and  pressed  in  on  the  mouth  and  darkened  through 
dusk  into  night  over  his  upturned  eyes.     Then  all  that 


310  THE  MORNING'S  WAR 

had  fought  and  striven  in  him  gave  up,  and  rest  came 
on  and  on;  it  called,  it  invited,  like  a  made  bed  after 
nights  of  lying  awake  in  day  clothes;  but  no,  it  had  not 
a  form,  it  was  a  glow,  a  suffusion,  a  luminousness  that 
brightened  and  spread;  it  was  widening  and  paling 
round  him,  but  chiefly  above,  and  he  was  a  bubble  of 
air  rising  through  gray  water  slowly,  without  effort  or 
will  of  his  own,  merely  watching  the  light  grow  and 
grow  overhead  as  he  drew  to  the  surface  and  broke  like 
a  bubble  there;  eyelids  broke  open,  and  June's  face  was 
there,  bent  over  the  waters ;  it  filled  his  emerging  eyes. 
She  had  closed  them,  for  she,  too,  had  suffered  his 
death  and  had  thought,  as  she  drew  those  curtains, 
could  there  be  any  mirrors  so  eager,  ever  again?  And 
now  they  were  open ;  they  took  the  light ;  they  filled 
themselves  with  her.  She  knew,  without  knowing 
how,  that  he  had  come  back  with  his  life ;  the  gleam  of 
the  salvaged  treasure  was  in  his  face;  and  he  knew  too, 
for  the  news  shone  in  hers  even  before  he  felt  in  his 
limbs  the  tingling  reveille  of  the  drugged  troops  of  life. 
Had  he  sweated  the  mortal  drop  out  of  his  veins? 
Had  its  lethal  virtue  gone  stale?  Or  had  some  freak 
of  luck  spiced  his  blood  with  its  antidote?  Or — but 
what  did  it  matter?  He  looked  up  at  June.  They  had 
come  through,  unbroken;  they  had  not  squared  fate; 
they  had  each  kept  pride  clean,  to  bring  to  the  other. 
And  no  poor  life  was  ahead;  romance  had  begun  it; 
romance  it  would  be;  not  the  old  fanfaronnading  ro- 
mance of  the  cheering  lists  and  the  sun  on  the  plumes 
— the  trumpeting  boy's  paradise  and  the  unassayed 
girl's,  but  romance  strung  afresh  to  the  pitch  of  the 


THE  MORNING'S  WAR  311 

grown  strength  of  women  and  men,  even  of  woman- 
and-man,  the  unmanned  unit,  the  two-chambered  heart 
of  the  race,  the  twin  power-house  of  high  desire  and 
will ;  the  romance  of  new,  harder,  unpraised  feats  to 
do,  of  dark  places  to  traverse  without  any  fairy  lamp 
in  the  hand,  of  glamourless  risks  to  affront,  of  all  the 
flintier  flints  that  there  were  for  steelier  steel  to  strike 
the  old  fire  from. 

She  did  not  speak,  nor  did  he,  under  that  first  rush 
and  oppression  of  instant  and  of  waiting  happiness. 
Words  must  have  been  made  by  man  for  telling  about 
quite  small  delights  only,  and  lighting  the  dim  spaces 
between  people  who  did  not  know  how  to  be  friends ; 
they  might,  with  their  poorness,  have  wronged  that 
morning  flame  of  life  and  joy,  or  blurred  the  vision 
that  each  lover  had  gained  of  the  other's  completing 
soul. 


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This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


MOV  18  1947 


&\?ft 


\\\$3 


APR  19  1961 


LD  21-100m-9,'47(A5702sl6)476 


YC  V3942 


Mi.24404 

113 

THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


SUPPLIED     BY 

THE  SEVEN   BOOKHUNTERS 


